Vibration Damping Materials and Their Applications in Nano/Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems: A Review

The present review explores an overall view of the vibration damping materials ranging from traditionally used viscoelastic materials for macroscale damping to hybrid thin film heterostructures for micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS). Vibration damping materials like rubbers, polymers, metals, metal-matrix composites and smart materials are reviewed in terms of damping capacity, stiffness, mechanical strength and figure of merit. Nanoscale shape memory alloys, piezoelectric materials, carbon nanotubes, their composites and thin films are promising materials for future nanoscale damping devices. The main focus of this article is on our development of new vibration damping approach for MEMS structures comprising of ferroelastic/ferroelastic thin film heterostructures. For the first time, nanoindentation has been explored as an alternative tool to evaluate the damping capability of actual components (e.g., thin films for MEMS) where production of dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA) test samples is not feasible. A comprehensive insight on the existing vibration damping materials and our new approach would definitely trigger some important applications in nano- and micro-electro-mechanical systems.