Effective quality factor and temperature dependence of self-oscillations in a thermal-piezoresistively pumped resonator

We measure the influence of ambient temperature (from -40 °C to 80 °C) on the threshold current for self-oscillations in a thermal-piezoresistively pumped, capacitively sensed resonator. We demonstrate that for our flexural mode self oscillator, the threshold current decreases with decreasing ambient temperature. We observe the generation of harmonics during self-oscillation with amplitudes that decrease and effective quality factors that increase with each successive mode. Following self-oscillations, we observe that the effective quality factor and amplitude is extremely sensitive to further DC current increases.