DC voltage-sustained self-oscillation of a nano-mechanical electron shuttle

One core challenge of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) is their efficient actuation. A promising concept superseding resonant driving is self-oscillation. Here we demonstrate voltage-sustained self-oscillation of a nanomechanical charge shuttle. Stable transport at 4.2 K is observed for billions of shuttling cycles, giving rise to ohmic current-voltage curves with a sharp dissipation threshold. With only a few nanowatts of input energy the presented scheme is suitable for operation in the millikelvin regime where Coulomb blockade-controlled single electron shuttling is anticipated.