Bifurcation-based micro/nano-electromechanical mass detection

van Nghi Nguyen (1) , Sébastien Baguet (1) , Claude-Henri Lamarque (2) , Régis Dufour (1)

1 DCS - Dynamique et Contrôle des Structures
2 LTDS - Laboratoire de Tribologie et Dynamique des Systèmes

When operating M/NEMS mass resonant sensors in the nonlinear regime, most of detection is based on the shift in the resonant frequency due to mass adsorption, as implemented in linear regime. This paper investigates an alternative mass detection based on the hysteretic behavior of the nonlinear frequency responses that takes advantage of bi-stability and bifurcations. A finite-degree-of-freedom reduced-order model of an electrostatically-actuated clamped-clamped microbeam is considered. Numerical results show that sudden jumps in amplitude make the detection of very small mass possible. Another interesting feature lies in the fact that the limit of detection can be set with the value of the operating frequency. However, it appears that this bifurcation-based mass detection does not exhibit the expected robustness. A possible improvement is proposed, based on the reinitialization of the system by a forced jump-down on the hysteretic response curve.

Mots clés: Mechanical resonator; Exploitation of nonlinearities; Mass sensing; MEMS

Domaines: Vibrations [physics.class-ph]; Vibrations [physics.class-ph]; Micro et nanotechnologies/Microélectronique

van Nghi Nguyen, Sébastien Baguet, Claude-Henri Lamarque, Régis Dufour. Bifurcation-based micro/nano-electromechanical mass detection. MEDYNA 2013 : 1st Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Structural Dynamics and Vibroacoustics, Apr 2013, Marrakech, Morocco. pp.1-4. ⟨hal-00935666⟩