How long does a tuning fork ring? 'Quantum-mechanics' solve a very classical problem

Austrian and German researchers at the University of Vienna and Technische Universitaet Muenchen have solved a long-standing problem in the design of mechanical resonators: the numerical prediction of the design-limited damping. They report their achievement, which has a broad impact on diverse fields, in the forthcoming issue of Nature Communications. The article describes both a numerical method to calculate the mechanical damping as well as a stringent test of its performance on a set of mechanical microstructures.