title: Modeling and measurement of geometrically nonlinear damping in a microcantilever-nanotube system.
abstract: Nonlinear mechanical systems promise broadband resonance and instantaneous hysteretic switching that can be used for high sensitivity sensing. However, to introduce nonlinear resonances in widely used microcantilever systems, such as AFM probes, requires driving the cantilever to an amplitude that is too large for any practical applications. We introduce a novel design for a microcantilever with a strong nonlinearity at small cantilever oscillation amplitude arising from the geometrical integration of a single BN nanotube. The dynamics of the system was modeled theoretically and confirmed experimentally. The system, besides providing a practical design of a nonlinear microcantilever-based probe, demonstrates also an effective method of studying the nonlinear damping properties of the attached nanotube. Beyond the typical linear mechanical damping, the nonlinear damping contribution from the attached nanotube was found to be essential for understanding the dynamical behavior of the designed system. Experimental results obtained through laser microvibrometry validated the developed model incorporating the nonlinear damping contribution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , 1206 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States.
authors.forename: Bongwon
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Jeong
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.forename: Min-Feng
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Alexander F
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Vakakis
authors.forename: Donald Michael
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: McFarland
authors.forename: Lawrence A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Bergman