Around the year 1500, Leonardo da Vinci designed the first mechanical calculator connecting a number of toothed wheels for simple adding operations. Since then, mechanical systems have become a major part of the later industrial revolutions with an abundance of machines in our everyday lives. Only with the advent of semiconductor electronics, however, did microstructuring techniques become available to realize mechanical systems with dimensions below 100 microns. With most recent structure sizes now reaching the limit of a few nanometres, suspended nanostructures that couple mechanical with electronic motion have been constructed. Moreover, novel lithographic techniques have enabled the investigation of transport across hybrid structures such as. suspended carbon nanotubes or flexible molecular bridges connected to mesoscopic leads.

In this invited focus issue of New Journal of Physics some of the leading experts in the field of nano-electromechanical systems (NEMS) describe the latest status and trends, from both an experimental and a theoretical perspective. A multitude of applications for NEMS are now within reach, ranging from high-frequency filters and switches in signal processing circuits, to ultra-sensitive sensors. In particular the development of mass sensors and scanning probe microscopy will be spurred by nano-mechanical systems. Considering that mechanical resonance frequencies of 1 GHz and more have already been achieved, these devices will be extremely sensitive and will offer high data acquisition rates.

On a fundamental level NEMS enable the investigation of electron–phonon coupling in the absolute limit via, for example, single electrons interacting with single (quantized) phonons, the study of single electrons being shuttled via mechanical motion, and the manipulation of single molecules with nano-mechanical tweezers. The future for NEMS research looks certain to be exciting – we can expect it to help us build detectors of virtually any kind, ultra-precise clocks and, at some point, maybe true nanomachines.

Focus on Nano-electromechanical Systems Contents

Thermomechanical noise limits on parametric sensing with nanomechanical resonators
A Cleland

Dynamics of a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting single-electron transistor
M Blencowe, J Imbers and A Armour

Simple models suffice for the single dot quantum shuttle
A Donarini, T Novotny and A-P Jauho

Quantum nano-electromechanics with electrons, quasiparticles and Cooper pairs: effective bath descriptions and strong feedback effects
A Clerk and S Bennett

Nuclear wave function interference in single-molecule electron transport
M R Wegewijs and K C Nowack

Self-excitation in nanoelectromechanical charge shuttles below the field emission regime
F Rüting, A Erbe and C Weiss

Formation of micro-tubes from strained SiGe/Si heterostructures
H Qin, N Shaji, N E Merrill, H S Kim, R C Toonen, R H Blick, M M Roberts, D Savage, M G Lagally and G Celler

Spin-controlled nanoelectromechanics in magnetic NEM-SET systems
L Y Gorelik, D Fedorets, R I Shekhter and M Jonson

Coupling between electronic transport and longitudinal phonons in suspended nanotubes
S Sapmaz, P Jarillo-Herrero, Ya M Blanter and H van der Zant

Phonon-assisted tunneling in interacting suspended single wall carbon nanotubes
W Izumida and M Grifoni

Theoretical and experimental investigations of three-terminal carbon nanotube relays
S Axelsson, E E B Campbell, L M Jonsson, J M Kinaret, S W Lee, Y W Park and M Sveningsson

Quantum dots in Si/SiGe 2DEGs with Schottky top-gated leads
K A Slinker, K L M Lewis, C C Haselby, S Goswami, L J Klein, J O Chu, S N Coppersmith and R Joynt

VHF, UHF and microwave frequency nanomechanical resonators
X M H Huang, X L Feng, C A Zorman, M Mehregany and M Roukes

Quantum master equation descriptions of a nanomechanical resonator coupled to a single-electron transistor
D A Rodrigues and A D Armour

Electron–vibron coupling in suspended nanotubes
Karsten Flensberg

Nonlinear response of a driven vibrating nanobeam in the quantum regime
V Peano and M Thorwart

Dynamics and current fluctuations in an ac-driven charge shuttle
F Pistolesi and Rosario Fazio

Robert H Blick, University of Wisconsin at Madison, USA
Milena Grifoni, Universität Regensburg, Germany