Mechanical sources of nonlinear damping play a central role in modern physics, from solid-state physics to thermodynamics. The microscopic theory of mechanical dissipation suggests that nonlinear damping of a resonant mode can be strongly enhanced when it is coupled to a vibration mode that is close to twice its resonance frequency. To date, no experimental evidence of this enhancement has been realized. In this letter, we experimentally show that nanoresonators driven into parametric-direct internal resonance provide supporting evidence for the microscopic theory of nonlinear dissipation. By regulating the drive level, we tune the parametric resonance of a graphene nanodrum over a range of 40–70 MHz to reach successive two-to-one internal resonances, leading to a nearly two-fold increase of the nonlinear damping. Our study opens up a route towards utilizing modal interactions and parametric resonance to realize resonators with engineered nonlinear dissipation over wide frequency range.

We demonstrate a novel response of a nonlinear micromechanical resonator when operated in a region of strong, non-linear mode coupling. The system is excited with a single drive signal and its response is characterized by periodic amplitude modulations that occur at timescales based on system parameters. The periodic amplitude modulations of the resonator are a consequence of nonlinear mode coupling and are responsible for the emergence of a "frequency comb" regime in the spectral response. By considering a generic model for a 1:3 internal resonance, we demonstrate that the novel behavior results from a saddle node on an invariant circle (SNIC) bifurcation. The ability to control the operating parameters of the micromechanical structures reported here, makes the simple micromechanical resonator an ideal testbed to study the dynamic response of SNIC behavior demonstrated in mechanical, optical and biological systems.

Because of the small size of nanomechanical systems, their vibrations become nonlinear already for small amplitudes. Many nontrivial aspects of the vibration dynamics arise from the coexistence of several nonlinearly coupled modes. We show that such coupling can lead to anomalous decay of the modes where they go through nonlinear resonance, so that their amplitude-dependent frequencies become commensurate. We demonstrate the possibility of a strongly nonmonotonic dependence of the decay rate on the amplitude if one of the modes serves as a thermal reservoir for another mode. Where the decay of both modes is slow compared to the rate of resonant energy exchange, the decay is accompanied by amplitude oscillations. Depending on the initial conditions, with increasing time it can display an extremely sharp or a comparatively smooth crossover between different regimes. The results provide insight into recent experimental results by several groups and suggest new ways of characterizing and controlling nanomechanical systems.

The dynamic response of a nonlinear resonator in the presence of resonant mode coupling is studied experimentally and theoretically. For the case of a clamped-clamped beam resonator in the presence of a 1:3 internal resonance, we show that at the onset of internal resonance, steady state oscillations cannot be sustained. At higher drive levels, stable oscillations can be maintained but the resonator amplitude undergoes amplitude modulated responses. We use these dynamic responses to build a bifurcation diagram that can be described remarkably well with a simple model consisting of a Duffing resonator coupled to a linear one.

This paper considers nonlinear interactions between vibration modes with a focus on recent studies relevant to micro- and nanoscale mechanical resonators. Due to their inherently small damping and high susceptibility to nonlinearity, these devices have brought to light new phenomena and offer the potential for novel applications. Nonlinear interactions between vibration modes are well known to have the potential for generating a “zoo” of complicated bifurcation patterns and a wide variety of dynamic behaviors, including chaos. Here, we focus on more regular, robust, and predictable aspects of their dynamics, since these are most relevant to applications. The investigation is based on relatively simple two-mode models that are able to capture and predict a wide range of transient and sustained dynamical behaviors. The paper emphasizes modeling and analysis that has been done in support of recent experimental investigations and describes in full detail the analysis and attendant insights obtained from the models that are briefly described in the experimental papers. Standard analytical tools are employed, but the questions posed and the conclusions drawn are novel, as motivated by observations from experiments. The paper considers transient dynamics, response to harmonic forcing, and self-excited systems and describes phenomena such as extended coherence time during transient decay, zero dispersion response, and nonlinear frequency veering. The paper closes with some suggested directions for future studies in this area.