Student research opportunities
Nonlinearity engineering for nano-electro-mechanical system
Project Code: CECS_877
This project is available at the following levels:
Honours, Masters, PhD
Keywords:
NEMS, mechanical, nonlinearity, sensor, coupling, frequency stablization
Supervisor:
Dr Yuerui (Larry) LuOutline:
A nano-electro-mechanical system (NEMS) that integrates various nano-scale mechanical sensors onto a single chip, has attracted exceptional interest among research and engineering communities. Among other remarkable characteristics, these tiny mechanical structures possess strong nonlinear properties. Typically, device nonlinearity is intentionally avoided, because higher amplitude fluctuations in the nonlinear region could be translated into frequency variability. Recently, we found that nonlinearity bifurcation could be used to stabilize our membrane oscillator with nanowire (NW) arrays. As a consequence, we propose to use our NEMS device as a platform to investigate its nonlinear dynamics and gain a deeper understanding of the origins of that nonlinearity. This could present a general mechanism to assist oscillation frequency stabilization and improve NEMS resonator performance for bio-molecular sensing applications. These nanowire arrays could also be embedded into suspended micro-channels. Coupled with the nonlinearity-assisted frequency stabilization result, the sensitivity of the mass sensor could be improved by orders of magnitude.
Requirements/Prerequisites
We are looking for highly motivated Ph.D. graduate students who are majoring in applied physics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, chemistry, materials science engineering, biomedical engineering, or other closely related areas to join the research team. We always look for dedicated undergraduate or master students to join us, to do creative work in rapidly growing field and generate co-authored publications.
Student Gain
The student will gain exciting research experience in the rapidly growing field of nanotechnology.
Background Literature
Recommended references:
A. K. Naik, M. S. Hanay, W. K. Hiebert, X. L. Feng, M. L. Roukes, Towards single-molecule nanomechanical mass spectrometry. Nature Nanotechnology 4, 445-450 (2009).
I. Kozinsky, H. W. C. Postma, O. Kogan, A. Husain, M. L. Roukes, Basins of attraction of a nonlinear nanomechanical resonator. Physical Review Letters 99, 207201 (2007).
D. Antonio, D. H. Zanette, D. Lopez, Frequency stabilization in nonlinear micromechanical oscillators. Nature Communications 3, 806 (2012).
Y. Lu, S. Peng, D. Luo, A. Lal, Low-concentration mechanical biosensor based on a photonic crystal nanowire array. Nature communications 2, 578 (2011).
Y. Lu, and A. Lal, Nonlinearity-assisted frequency stabilization for nanowire array membrane oscillator.Proceedings of the 26th IEEE International Conference on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS 2013), pp. 653-656, Taipei, Taiwan, January 20-25, 2013.
