Generating Giant and Tunable Nonlinearity in a Macroscopic Mechanical Resonator from Chemical Bonding Force

Abstract

Nonlinearity in macroscopic mechanical system plays a crucial role in a wide variety of applications, including signal transduction and processing, synchronization, and building logical devices. However, it is difficult to generate nonlinearity due to the fact that macroscopic mechanical systems follow the Hooke's law and response linearly to external force, unless strong drive is used. Here we propose and experimentally realize a record-high nonlinear response in macroscopic mechanical system by exploring the anharmonicity in deforming a single chemical bond. We then demonstrate the tunability of nonlinear response by precisely controlling the chemical bonding interaction, and realize a cubic elastic constant of \mathversion{bold}$2\times 10^{18}\mathrm{N}/{\mathrm{m}}^3$, many orders of magnitude larger in strength than reported previously. This enables us to observe vibrational bistate transitions of the resonator driven by the weak Brownian thermal noise at 6~K. This method can be flexibly applied to a variety of mechanical systems to improve nonlinear responses, and can be used, with further improvements, to explore macroscopic quantum mechanics.

References in corpus (23)

• Advances in atomic force microscopy
• Introduction to Quantum Noise, Measurement and Amplification
• Nonlinear damping in mechanical resonators based on graphene and carbon nanotubes
• Nonlinear Micromechanical Casimir Oscillator
• Strong and Tunable Nonlinear Optomechanical Coupling in a Low-Loss System
• Synchronization of Micromechanical Oscillators Using Light
• Thermal nonlinearities in a nanomechanical oscillator
• Coherent Signal Amplification in Bistable Nanomechanical Oscillators by Stochastic Resonance
• Synchronization of two anharmonic nanomechanical oscillators
• Dynamic manipulation of mechanical resonators in the high amplitude regime through optical backaction
• Noise-enabled precision measurements of a Duffing nanomechanical resonator
• Surpassing fundamental limits of oscillators using nonlinear resonators
• Synchronization by Nonlinear Frequency Pulling
• Noise Squeezing in a Nanomechanical Duffing Resonator
• Classical to Quantum Transition of a Driven Nonlinear Nanomechanical Resonator
• Noise activated switching in a driven, nonlinear micromechanical oscillator
• Quantum Effects in the Mechanical Properties of Suspended Nanomechanical Systems
• Mechanical stiffening, bistability, and bit operations in a microcantilever
• Macroscopic quantum effects in a strongly driven nanomechanical resonator
• Demonstration of Motion Transduction Based on Parametrically Coupled Mechanical Resonators
• Dynamical tunneling in macroscopic systems
• Supernarrow spectral peaks near a kinetic phase transition in a driven, nonlinear micromechanical oscillator
• Macroscopic quantum tunneling in nanoelectromechanical systems

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Wave propagation in one-dimensional nonlinear acoustic metamaterials
• Room temperature test of the Continuous Spontaneous Localization model using a levitated micro-oscillator
• Giant Tunable Mechanical Nonlinearity in Graphene-Silicon Nitride Hybrid Resonator
• Casimir spring and dilution in macroscopic cavity optomechanics
• Quadrature squeezing enhances Wigner negativity in a mechanical Duffing oscillator
• Bistability and squeezing of the librational mode of an optically trapped nanoparticle
• Kerr-like nonlinearities in an optomechanical system with an asymmetric anharmonic mechanical resonator