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Full Electrostatic Control of Nanomechanical Buckling

Selcuk Oguz Erbil, Utku Hatipoglu, Cenk Yanik, Mahyar Ghavami, Atakan B. Ari, Mert Yuksel, and M. Selim Hanay
Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 046101 – Published 31 January 2020
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Abstract

Buckling of mechanical structures results in bistable states with spatial separation, a feature desirable for sensing, shape configuration, and mechanical computation. Although different approaches have been developed to access buckling at microscopic scales, such as heating or prestressing beams, little attention has been paid so far to dynamically control all the parameters critical for the bifurcation—the compressive stress and the lateral force on the beam. Here, we develop an all-electrostatic architecture to control the compressive force, as well as the direction and amount of buckling, without significant heat generation on micro- or nanostructures. With this architecture, we demonstrated fundamental aspects of device function and dynamics. By applying voltages at any of the digital electronics standards, we have controlled the direction of buckling. Lateral deflections as large as 12% of the beam length were achieved. By modulating the compressive stress and lateral electrostatic force acting on the beam, we tuned the potential energy barrier between the postbifurcation stable states and characterized snap-through transitions between these states. The proposed architecture opens avenues for further studies in actuators, shape-shifting devices, thermodynamics of information, and dynamical chaos.

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  • Received 6 September 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.124.046101

© 2020 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Condensed Matter, Materials & Applied PhysicsNonlinear DynamicsGeneral Physics

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Buckling on Command

Published 31 January 2020

An electromechanical device allows researchers to control and study how a nanoscale beam buckles when compressed.

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Authors & Affiliations

Selcuk Oguz Erbil1, Utku Hatipoglu1, Cenk Yanik2, Mahyar Ghavami1, Atakan B. Ari1,†, Mert Yuksel1, and M. Selim Hanay1,3,*

  • 1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bilkent University, 06800, Ankara, Turkey
  • 2Sabancı University SUNUM Nanotechnology Research Center, 34956, Istanbul, Turkey
  • 3National Nanotechnology Research Center (UNAM), Bilkent University, 06800, Ankara, Turkey

  • *Corresponding author. selimhanay@bilkent.edu.tr
  • Present address: Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

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Issue

Vol. 124, Iss. 4 — 31 January 2020

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