Nonlinear Actuation of Casimir Oscillators toward Chaos: Comparison of Topological Insulators and Metals

Abstract

In the current study, we explore the sensitivity of the actuation dynamics of electromechanical systems on novel materials, e.g., Bi2Se3, which is a well-known 3D Topological Insulator (TI), and compare their response to metallic conductors, e.g., Au, that are currently used in devices. Bifurcation and phase portraits analysis in conservative systems suggest that the strong difference between the conduction states of Bi2Se3 and Au yields sufficiently weaker Casimir force to enhance stable operation. Furthermore, for nonconservative driven systems, the Melnikov function and Poincare portrait analysis probed the occurrence of chaotic behavior leading to increased risk for stiction. It was found that the presence of the TI enhanced stable operation against chaotic behavior over a significantly wider range of operation conditions in comparison to typical metallic conductors. Therefore, the use of TIs can allow sufficient surface conductance to apply electrostatic compensation of residual contact potentials and, at the same time, to yield sufficiently weak Casimir forces favoring long-term stable actuation dynamics against chaotic behavior.