No abstract

This review describes recent experimental developments in the study of nonlinearities for flexural microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) structures. It includes motivation for studying a variety of nonlinear phenomena, highlighting applications where nonlinearities are relevant. Examples are described where nonlinearities are seen as a nuisance, along with techniques used to mitigate the nonlinearities. More recently, efforts to exploit nonlinearities for improved performance have emerged and are also described. After a summary of the theory behind nonlinear mechanisms, the article describes progress in several areas of nonlinearity: engineering nonlinearities to enhance performance, bifurcations and multistability, parametric processes, frequency mixing, nonlinearly coupled resonances, and nonlinear dissipation.

Enhancing the magnetoelectric coupling in a strain-mediated multiferroic composite structure plays a vital role in controlling magnetism by electric fields. An enhancement of magnetoelastic coupling between ferroelectric single crystal (011)-cut [Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O3](1-x)-[PbTiO3]x (PMN-PT, x≈ 0.30) and ferromagnetic polycrystalline Ni thin film through an interposed benzocyclobutene polymer thin film is reported. A nearly twofold increase in sensitivity of remanent magnetization in the Ni thin film to an applied electric field is observed. This observation suggests a viable method of improving the magnetoelectric response in these composite multiferroic systems.

This manuscript demonstrates a near-field acoustic platform to synthesize high resolution, complex and non-periodic energy potential wells for patterning micro-objects.