Self-sustained micromechanical oscillator with linear feedback

Abstract

Autonomous oscillators, such as clocks and lasers, produce periodic signals \emph{without} any external frequency reference. In order to sustain stable periodic motions, there needs to be external energy supply as well as nonlinearity built into the oscillator to regulate the amplitude. Usually, nonlinearity is provided by the sustaining feedback mechanism, which also supplies energy, whereas the constituent resonator that determines the output frequency stays linear. Here we propose a new self-sustaining scheme that relies on the nonlinearity originating from the resonator itself to limit the oscillation amplitude, while the feedback remains linear. We introduce a model to describe the working principle of the self-sustained oscillations and validate it with experiments performed on a nonlinear microelectromechanical (MEMS) based oscillator.

24 pages, 16 figures

References in corpus (10)

• Advances in atomic force microscopy
• Nonlinear energy harvesting
• Nonlinear damping in mechanical resonators based on graphene and carbon nanotubes
• Self-oscillation
• Thermal nonlinearities in a nanomechanical oscillator
• Graphene mechanical oscillators with tunable frequency
• Noise-enabled precision measurements of a Duffing nanomechanical resonator
• Surpassing fundamental limits of oscillators using nonlinear resonators
• A Nanoscale Parametric Feedback Oscillator
• Basins of attraction of a nonlinear nanomechanical resonator

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• Friendship in the Axiverse: Late-time direct and astrophysical signatures of early-time nonlinear axion dynamics
• Frequency stabilization of self-sustained oscillations in a sideband-driven electromechanical resonator
• Low-power photothermal self-oscillation of bimetallic nanowires
• Frequency stabilization by synchronization of Duffing oscillators
• Energy exchange in globally coupled mechanical phase oscillators