Noise-enabled precision measurements of a duffing nanomechanical resonator

We report quantitative measurements of the nonlinear response of a radio frequency mechanical resonator with a very high quality factor. We measure the noise-free transitions between the two basins of attraction that appear in the nonlinear regime, and find good agreement with theory. We measure the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Physical review letters 2005-04, Vol.94 (15), p.156403.1-156403.4, Article 156403
Main Authors: ALDRIDGE, J. S, CLELAND, A. N
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Exact sciences and technology
Instruments, apparatus, components and techniques common to several branches of physics and astronomy
Mechanical instruments, equipment and techniques
Micromechanical devices and systems
Physics
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Summary:We report quantitative measurements of the nonlinear response of a radio frequency mechanical resonator with a very high quality factor. We measure the noise-free transitions between the two basins of attraction that appear in the nonlinear regime, and find good agreement with theory. We measure the transition rate response to controlled levels of white noise, and extract the basin activation energy. This allows us to obtain precise values for the relevant frequencies and the cubic nonlinearity in the Duffing oscillator, with applications to parametric sensing.
ISSN:0031-9007
1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/physrevlett.94.156403