Full Electrostatic Control of Nanomechanical Buckling

Abstract

Buckling of mechanical structures results in bistable states with spatial separation, a feature desirable for sensing, shape configuration, and mechanical computation. Although different approaches have been developed to access buckling at microscopic scales, such as heating or prestressing beams, little attention has been paid so far to dynamically control all the parameters critical for the bifurcation-the compressive stress and the lateral force on the beam. Here, we develop an all-electrostatic architecture to control the compressive force, as well as the direction and amount of buckling, without significant heat generation on micro-or nanostructures. With this architecture, we demonstrated fundamental aspects of device function and dynamics. By applying voltages at any of the digital electronics standards, we have controlled the direction of buckling. Lateral deflections as large as 12% of the beam length were achieved. By modulating the compressive stress and lateral electrostatic force acting on the beam, we tuned the potential energy barrier between the postbifurcation stable states and characterized snap-through transitions between these states. The proposed architecture opens avenues for further studies in actuators, shape-shifting devices, thermodynamics of information, and dynamical chaos.

Nonlinear size-dependent modeling and dynamics of nanocrystalline arc resonators

“…More specifically, bistable MEMS/NEMS resonators have extensively been used in numerous potential applications, like sensing (Zhao et al 2018;Hajjaj et al 2019c), filtering (Hafiz et al 2017), logic devices (Hafiz et al 2016), signal processing (Nguyen 2007), and energy harvesting (Ando et al 2012). Bistable resonators could be realized in different configurations, including the buckled beams (Lacarbonara et al 1998;Hajjaj et al 2016;Fu et al 2019;Erbil et al 2020) and the intentionally fabricated curved beams (shallow arch beams) (Hajjaj et al 2015;Tella et al 2017;Ouakad and Najar 2019). Initially curved resonators were among the more investigated and exploited structures in the literature due to their rich and complex static and dynamic behavior (Tajaddodianfar et al 2015a;Alcheikh et al 2017;Hajjaj et al 2017b;Alneamy et al 2020).…”

Monitoring Micromechanical Buckling at High-Speed for Sensing and Transducer Applications

“…Clearly, to transform a nonlinear mechanism into an engineering system, all critical parameters of the system should be controllable by the user. Recently [4], a full electrostatic control of nanomechanical buckling was introduced by integrating an inverted comb drive actuator with a nanomechanical beam (a similar platform is shown in Figure 2 here). While the voltage on the comb drive controlled the axial compression force, additional side gates on either side of the beam enabled for the adjustment of the asymmetry between the bistable states (Fig.…”

Quantum Buckling in Metal–Organic Framework Materials

“…At the nanometer scale, the electrostatic control of buckling was recently realized, giving rise to buckling bits for nanomechanical computation. 1 Quantum effects become dominant when the column size is decreased even further, allowing for tunneling between degenerate buckling states. Recently, this line of thought has initiated research to realize mechanical qubits.…”