A mechanism of tunable frequency splitting in electrostatically actuated circular plates

Abstract

In this paper, we address a new mechanism of frequency splitting of vibration modes in electrostatically actuated perfectly flat submicron circular nanoplates. The splitting is generated by actuating the nanoplate through asymmetric electrostatic force. We have found that the same natural frequency of two degenerated modes of a circular nanoplate splits into two distinct natural frequencies after applying asymmetric electrostatic force. Further, the frequency difference of the splitted modes can be tuned by varying the magnitude of electrostatic actuation force. Finite element analysis has been used to demonstrate this frequency splitting behaviour. The nature of this type of splitting phenomenon is also compared with frequency splitting of imperfect plates and found significantly different. We also study the effects of geometrical parameters and residual stress on this voltage actuation based frequency splitting behaviour.