Modeling NEMS Non-Linearities with Commercial Quartz Tuning Forks

As technology develops, Nanoelectromechanical System (NEMS) oscillators become progressively smaller in accordance with Moore's law. However, the small NEMS tend to easily enter a nonlinear regime, in which controlling them represents a technological challenge. With the goal of developing an efficient method to control nonlinear NEMS, we model their behavior with commercial 32768 Hz quartz tuning forks. We use a software-defined network analyzer that excites fork vibrations with continuous wave signals and records their amplitude and phase with respect to the excitation signal. We present preliminary results of our studies performed in air and in vacuum. Our data exhibits an onset of strong nonlinearity with a negative relationship between the fork's excitation amplitude and resonant frequency, similar to the response of NEMS. Next, we will concentrate on the transition between linear and nonlinear regimes. We believe that using a modulated excitation signal will enable us to keep the nonlinear oscillator under control.