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Even a relatively weak drive force is enough to push a typical nanomechanical resonator into the nonlinear regime. Consequently, nonlinearities are widespread in nanomechanics and determine the critical characteristics of nanoelectromechanical systems' (NEMSs) resonators. A thorough understanding of the nonlinear dynamics of higher eigenmodes of NEMS resonators would be beneficial for progress, given their use in applications and fundamental studies. Here, we characterize the nonlinearity and the linear dynamic range (LDR) of each eigenmode of two nanomechanical beam resonators with different intrinsic tension values up to eigenmode n = 11. We find that the modal Duffing constant increases as n4, while the critical amplitude for the onset of nonlinearity decreases as 1/n. The LDR, determined from the ratio of the critical amplitude to the thermal noise amplitude, increases weakly with n. Our findings are consistent with our theory treating the beam as a string, with the nonlinearity emerging from stretching at high amplitudes. These scaling laws, observed in experiments and validated theoretically, can be leveraged for pushing the limits of NEMS-based sensing even further. 

We study the electrothermal actuation of nanomechanical motion using a combination of numerical simulations and analytical solutions. The nanoelectrothermal actuator structure is a u-shaped gold nanoresistor that is patterned on the anchor of a doubly clamped nanomechanical beam or a microcantilever resonator. This design has been used in recent experiments successfully. In our finite-element analysis (FEA) based model, our input is an ac current; we first calculate the temperature oscillations due to Joule heating using Ohm’s law and the heat equation; we then determine the thermally induced bending moment and the displacement profile of the beam by coupling the temperature field to Euler–Bernoulli beam theory with tension. Our model efficiently combines transient and frequency-domain analyses: we compute the temperature field using a transient approach and then impose this temperature field as a harmonic perturbation for determining the mechanical response in the frequency domain. This unique modeling method offers lower computational complexity and improved accuracy and is faster than a fully transient FEA approach. Our dynamical model computes the temperature and displacement fields in the time domain over a broad range of actuation frequencies and amplitudes. We validate the numerical results by directly comparing them with experimentally measured displacement amplitudes of nano-electro-mechanical system beams around their eigenmodes in vacuum. Our model predicts a thermal time constant of 1.9 ns in vacuum for our particular structures, indicating that electrothermal actuation is efficient up to ∼80 MHz. We also investigate the thermal response of the actuator when immersed in a variety of fluids. 

We explore the dynamics of a nanoscale doubly clamped beam that is under high tension, immersed in a viscous fluid, and driven externally by a spatially varying drive force. We develop a theoretical description that is valid for all possible values of tension, includes the motion of the higher modes of the beam, and accounts for a harmonic force that is applied over a limited spatial region of the beam near its ends. We compare our theoretical predictions with experimental measurements for a nanoscale beam that is driven electrothermally and immersed in air and water. The theoretical predictions show good agreement with experiments, and the validity of a simplified string approximation is demonstrated. 

The oscillatory dynamics of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) is at the heart of many emerging applications in nanotechnology. For common NEMS, such as beams and strings, the oscillatory dynamics is formulated using a dissipationless wave equation derived from elasticity. Under a harmonic ansatz, the wave equation gives an undamped free vibration equation; solving this equation with the proper boundary conditions provides the undamped eigenfunctions with the familiar standing wave patterns. Any harmonically driven solution is expressible in terms of these undamped eigenfunctions. Here, we show that this formalism becomes inconvenient as dissipation increases. To this end, we experimentally map out the position- and frequency-dependent oscillatory motion of a NEMS string resonator driven linearly by a non-symmetric force at one end at different dissipation limits. At low dissipation (high Q factor), we observe sharp resonances with standing wave patterns that closely match the eigenfunctions of an undamped string. With a slight increase in dissipation, the standing wave patterns become lost, and waves begin to propagate along the nanostructure. At large dissipation (low Q factor), these propagating waves become strongly attenuated and display little, if any, resemblance to the undamped string eigenfunctions. A more efficient and intuitive description of the oscillatory dynamics of a NEMS resonator can be obtained by superposition of waves propagating along the nanostructure.