Piezoelectric effect on the intrinsic dissipation in oscillating gallium nitride nanobelts

Mechanics and Aerospace Design Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto - Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G8, Canada

^(a) meguid@mie.utoronto.ca (corresponding author)

Received: 10 August 2015
Accepted: 23 October 2015

Abstract

The intrinsic dissipation in oscillating gallium nitride (GaN) nanobelts subject to an electric field has been examined using molecular-dynamics simulations. Owing to the piezoelectric effect of GaN nanobelts, their quality factor is greatly influenced by the electric field and can be improved by over 10 times across a range of electric-field strengths. In addition, the temperature dependence of the quality factor is also significantly affected by the applied electric field. Some possible explanations as to how the piezoelectric effect influences the intrinsic energy loss are proposed based on the classical thermoelastic dissipation theory.