  The importance of thermoelastic damping as a fundamental dissipation
mechanism for small-scale mechanical resonators is evaluated in light of recent
efforts to design high-Q micrometer- and nanometer-scale electro-mechanical
systems (MEMS and NEMS). The equations of linear thermoelasticity are used to
give a simple derivation for thermoelastic damping of small flexural vibrations
in thin beams. It is shown that Zener's well-known approximation by a
Lorentzian with a single thermal relaxation time slightly deviates from the
exact expression.
