Diffusion-induced bistability of driven nanomechanical resonators.

We study nanomechanical resonators with frequency fluctuations due to diffusion of absorbed particles. The diffusion depends on the vibration amplitude through inertial effect. We find that, if the diffusion coefficient D is sufficiently large, the resonator response to periodic driving displays bistability. The lifetime of the coexisting vibrational states exponentially increases with increasing D and displays a scaling dependence on the parameters close to bifurcation points.