Conventional techniques for the actuation and detection of micro- and nanoelectromechanical structure resonant frequency involve rather inconvenient structure actuation or an extremely sensitive detection system. In an alternate approach, we demonstrate a method to actuate micromachined low-stress silicon-oxide cantilevers by air flow. The output signal related to the amplitude of oscillation was enhanced by more than three orders of magnitude in contrast to the amplitude gain due to the thermal noise response of the system. The quality factor dependence with varying flow rate was also observed.

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