BSAC graduate student researcher and winner of the 2026 IFCS Best Student Paper, Xintian Liu, photographed with 2026 IFCS committee members Dr. Hanna Cho (The Ohio State University), and Dr. Wei-Chang Li (National Taiwan University)
Graduate student researchers from BSAC co-director Clark Nguyen’s group received recognition at the 2026 IEEE International Frequency Control Symposium (IFCS) held May 10–13 in Tampa, Florida, earning both a Best Student Paper Award and an additional finalist nomination.
Xintian Liu received the Best Student Paper Award for Silicon Carbide Coating of MEMS Resonators via Localized Annealing of Amorphous Carbon. The work demonstrates a selective silicon carbide (SiC) coating process using micro-scale Joule heating to strengthen polysilicon folded-beam MEMS resonators against long-term drift while increasing the quality factor Q more than 30-fold, from 2,143 to 71,472. The low-power, localized approach also enables potential in situ mitigation of surface instabilities during packaged device operation.
Fellow BSAC researcher Kevin H. Zheng was also recognized as a finalist for 121-m/s Diamond Disk Resonator. The research presents a 414-MHz capacitive-gap-transduced polydiamond contour mode disk resonator achieving velocities of 121 m/s, more than 16× higher than typical MEMS-based oscillators. The design combines the high fracture strength of microcrystalline polydiamond with a strategically mismatched polysilicon stem to reduce anchor loss and support ultra-low phase noise oscillator applications.
Both papers were presented in the “Materials for MEMS Resonators” session, underscoring BSAC’s continued leadership in advanced micro-electromechanical systems research.
