Nonlinear dynamics of a driven nanomechanical single-electron transistor

Kirton, P. G. and Armour, A. D. (2013) Nonlinear dynamics of a driven nanomechanical single-electron transistor. Physical Review B, 87 (15). 155407. ISSN 1098-0121 (https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.87.155407)

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Abstract

We analyze the response of a nanomechanical resonator to an external drive when it is also coupled to a single-electron transistor (SET). The interaction between the SET electrons and the mechanical resonator depends on the amplitude of the mechanical motion leading to a strongly nonlinear response to the drive which is similar to that of a Duffing oscillator. We show that the average dynamics of the resonator is well described by a simple effective model which incorporates damping and frequency renormalization terms which are amplitude dependent. We also find that for a certain range of parameters the system displays interesting bistable dynamics in which noise arising from charge fluctuations causes the resonator to switch slowly between different dynamical states.

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