A fundamental loss mechanism in microresonators at low vacuum levels is the energy transfer from the resonating mass to the surrounding gas. Both continuum models (based on Navier-Stokes equations) and molecular models (based on the microscopic motion of the gas molecules) have been proposed to explain experimental damping data. In this work, we present measurements of quality factor and damping factor, extracted with a novel measurement method, for several micro-machined resonators, and we compare them with theoretical predictions both for continuum and molecular models. The second approach, which does not require ad-hoc hypoheses and has a stronger theoretical basis, is shown to fit experimental data more accurately as well.
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