Tunable, broadband nonlinear nanomechanical resonator.

A nanomechanical resonator incorporating intrinsically geometric nonlinearity and operated in a highly nonlinear regime is modeled and developed. The nanoresonator is capable of extreme broadband resonance, with tunable resonance bandwidth up to many times its natural frequency. Its resonance bandwidth and drop frequency (the upper jump-down frequency) are found to be very sensitive to added mass and energy dissipation due to damping. We demonstrate a prototype nonlinear mechanical nanoresonator integrating a doubly clamped carbon nanotube and show its broadband resonance over tens of MHz (over 3 times its natural resonance frequency) and its sensitivity to femtogram added mass at room temperature.