On the secondary resonance of a MEMS resonator: A conceptual study based on shooting and perturbation methods

• Subharmonic excitation of a clamped-clamped micro-beam resonator is studied.
• Perturbation and shooting methods were applied to capture the periodic orbits.
• The shooting technique can be applied regardless of the order magnitude of the terms.
• Some cyclic fold bifurcations are missed if perturbation method is applied.

Nonlinear dynamics of a clamped–clamped capacitive micro-beam resonator subjected to subharmonic excitation of order one-half is studied. The micro-beam resonator is sandwiched with two piezoelectric layers throughout the length, and as a result of piezoelectric actuation a tensile/compressive axial load is induced along the length which is used as a frequency tuning tool. The resonator is subjected to a combination of a bias DC and harmonic AC electrostatic actuations. In order to determine the frequency response subharmonic resonance condition, both perturbation and shooting methods are applied. The stability of the periodic solutions and the bifurcations types are also studied. It is shown that the application of perturbation method imposes some limitations on the order of magnitudes of the terms in the differential equation of the motion; as a result out of the domain where the ordering assumption of the perturbation solution does not hold, some periodic solutions as well as some vital bifurcation points are missed. It is shown that on the frequency domain, the resonator exhibits both softening and hardening behaviors whereas this is not predicted by the perturbation scheme. The effect of DC and AC actuation voltages on the qualitative response of the system is determined. It is shown that based on the polarity of the piezoelectric actuation, the frequency response curves can be shifted both in forward and backward directions which can be used in the design of novel RF MEMS filters/sensors.