Piezoelectrically pumped parametric amplification and Q enhancement in an electromechanical oscillator

The frequency response of an electromechanical oscillator was measured while being parametrically pumped by double frequency modulations to the effective spring constant via the piezoelectric effect. A 13dB gain in the resonance amplitude was observed by increasing the pump power where further increase was limited by parametric excitation of the fundamental mode. Concurrently, the coherent amplification resulted in the quality factor of the resonance also being enhanced by ∼2.5 times. The on-chip degenerate piezoelectric parametric amplification demonstrated here could be implemented in nanoelectromechanical oscillators to bypass the detrimental effects of size minimization.