Modal interactions of flexural and torsional vibrations in a microcantilever

The nonlinear interactions between flexural and torsional modes of a microcantilever are experimentally studied. The coupling is demonstrated by measuring the frequency response of one mode, which is sensitive to the motion of another resonance mode. The flexural–flexural, torsional–torsional and flexural–torsional modes are coupled due to nonlinearities, which affect the dynamics at high vibration amplitudes and cause the resonance frequency of one mode to depend on the amplitude of the other modes. We also investigate the nonlinear dynamics of torsional modes, which cause a frequency stiffening of the response. By simultaneously driving another torsional mode in the nonlinear regime, the nonlinear response is tuned from stiffening to weakening. By balancing the positive and negative cubic nonlinearities a linear response is obtained for the strongly driven system. The nonlinear modal interactions play an important role in the dynamics of multi-mode scanning probe microscopes.

► Flexural and torsional modes in a microcantilever are coupled via the intrinsic mechanical nonlinearity. ► Torsional modes exhibit a frequency stiffening response at large amplitudes. ► The nonlinearity constant of one torsional mode changes sign when another torsional mode is driven at high amplitudes. ► One mode can be used to detect the motion of another resonance mode of the same cantilever.