Casimir Effect on Voltage Response of Superharmonic Resonance of NEMS Resonators

Abstract

This paper investigates the voltage response of superharmonic resonance of the second order of electrostatically actuated nano-electro-mechanical system (NEMS) resonator sensor. The structure of the NEMS device is a resonator cantilever over a ground plate under Alternating Current (AC) voltage. Superharmonic resonance of second order occurs when the AC voltage is operating in a frequency near-quarter the natural frequency of the resonator. The forces acting on the system are electrostatic, damping and Casimir. To induce a bifurcation phenomenon in superharmonic resonance, the AC voltage is in the category of hard excitation. The gap distance between the cantilever resonator and base plate is in the range of 20 nm to 1 μm for Casimir forces to be present. The differential equation of motion is converted to dimensionless by choosing the gap as reference length for deflections, the length of the resonator for the axial coordinate, and reference time based on the characteristics of the structure. The Method of Multiple Scales (MMS) and Reduced Order Model (ROM) are used to model the characteristic of the system. MMS transforms the nonlinear partial differential equation of motion into two simpler problems, namely zero-order and first-order. ROM, based on the Galerkin procedure, uses the undamped linear mode shapes of the undamped cantilever beam as the basis functions. The influences of parameters (i.e. Casimir, damping, fringe, and detuning parameter) were also investigated.