No Arabic abstract
Euler-Bernoulli beam theory is widely used to successfully predict the linear dynamics of micro- and nano-cantilever beams. However, its capacity to characterize the nonlinear dynamics of these devices has not yet been rigorously assessed, despite its use in nanoelectromechanical systems development. In this article, we report the first highly controlled measurements of the nonlinear response of nanomechanical cantilevers using an ultra-linear detection system. This is performed for an extensive range of devices to probe the validity of Euler-Bernoulli theory in the nonlinear regime. We find that its predictions deviate strongly from our measurements for the nonlinearity of the fundamental flexural mode, which show a systematic dependence on aspect ratio (length/width) together with random scatter. This contrasts with the second mode, which is always found to be in good agreement with theory. These findings underscore the delicate balance between inertial and geometric nonlinear effects in the fundamental mode, and strongly motivate further work to develop theories beyond the Euler-Bernoulli approximation.
Coupled micro- and nanomechanical oscillators are of fundamental and technical interest for emerging quantum technologies. Upon interfacing with long-lived solid-state spins, the coherent manipulation of the quantum hybrid system becomes possible even at ambient conditions. While, the ability of these systems to act as a quantum bus inducing long-range spin-spin interactions has been known, the possibility to coherently couple electron/nuclear spins to the common modes of multiple oscillators and map their mechanical motion to spin-polarization has not been experimentally demonstrated. We here report experiments on interfacing spins to the common modes of a coupled cantilever system, and show their correlation by translating ultra-low forces induced by radiation from one oscillator to a distant spin. Further, we analyze the coherent spin-spin coupling induced by the common modes and estimate the entanglement generation among distant spins.
We investigate the coupling of a nanomechanical oscillator in the quantum regime with molecular (electric) dipoles. We find theoretically that the cantilever can produce single-mode squeezing of the center-of-mass motion of an isolated trapped molecule and two-mode squeezing of the phonons of an array of molecules. This work opens up the possibility of manipulating dipolar crystals, which have been recently proposed as quantum memory, and more generally, is indicative of the promise of nanoscale cantilevers for the quantum detection and control of atomic and molecular systems.
We report the first study on the thermal behaviour of the stiffness of individual carbon nanotubes, which is achieved by measuring the resonance frequency of their fundamental mechanical bending modes. We observe a reduction of the Youngs modulus over a large temperature range with a slope $-(173pm 65)$ ppm/K in its relative shift. These findings are reproduced by two different theoretical models based on the thermal dynamics of the lattice. These results reveal how the measured fundamental bending modes depend on the phonons in the nanotube via the Youngs modulus. An alternative description based on the coupling between the measured mechanical modes and the phonon thermal bath in the Akhiezer limit is discussed.
We present a nanoladder geometry that minimizes the mechanical dissipation of ultrasensitive cantilevers. A nanoladder cantilever consists of a lithographically patterned scaffold of rails and rungs with feature size $sim$ 100 nm. Compared to a rectangular beam of the same dimensions, the mass and spring constant of a nanoladder are each reduced by roughly two orders of magnitude. We demonstrate a low force noise of $158 (+62)(-42),$zN and $190 (+42)(-33),$zN in a one-Hz bandwidth for devices made from silicon and diamond, respectively, measured at temperatures between 100--150 mK. As opposed to bottom-up mechanical resonators like nanowires or nanotubes, nanoladder cantilevers can be batch-fabricated using standard lithography, which is a critical factor for applications in scanning force microscopy.
We have fabricated ferrite cantilevers in which their vibrational properties can be controlled by external magnetic fields. Submicron-scale cantilever structures were made from Y3Fe5O12 (YIG) films by physical etching combined with use of a focused ion beam milling technique. We found that the cantilevers exhibit two resonance modes which correspond to horizontal and vertical vibrations. Under external magnetic fields, the resonance frequency of the horizontal mode increases, while that of the vertical mode decreases, quantitatively consistent with our numerical simulation for magnetic forces. The changes in resonance frequencies with magnetic fields reach a few percent, showing that efficient magnetic control of resonance frequencies was achieved.