88 research outputs found
Non-equilibrium Effects in the Thermal Switching of Underdamped Josephson Junctions
We study the thermal escape problem in the low damping limit. We find that
finiteness of the barrier is crucial for explaining the thermal activation
results. In this regime low barrier non-equilibrium corrections to the usual
theories become necessary. We propose a simple theoretical extension accounting
for these non-equilibrium processes which agrees numerical results. We apply
our theory to the understanding of switching current curves in underdamped
Josephson junctions.Comment: 4 pages + 4 figure
Pull-in control due to Casimir forces using external magnetic fields
We present a theoretical calculation of the pull-in control in capacitive
micro switches actuated by Casimir forces, using external magnetic fields. The
external magnetic fields induces an optical anisotropy due to the excitation of
magneto plasmons, that reduces the Casimir force. The calculations are
performed in the Voigt configuration, and the results show that as the magnetic
field increases the system becomes more stable. The detachment length for a
cantilever is also calculated for a cantilever, showing that it increases with
increasing magnetic field. At the pull-in separation, the stiffness of the
system decreases with increasing magnetic field.Comment: accepted for publication in App. Phys. Let
Parametric resonances in electrostatically interacting carbon nanotube arrays
We study, numerically and analytically, a model of a one-dimensional array of
carbon nanotube resonators in a two-terminal configuration. The system is
brought into resonance upon application of an AC-signal superimposed on a
DC-bias voltage. When the tubes in the array are close to each other,
electrostatic interactions between tubes become important for the array
dynamics. We show that both transverse and longitudinal parametric resonances
can be excited in addition to primary resonances. The intertube electrostatic
interactions couple modes in orthogonal directions and affect the mode
stability.Comment: 11 pages, 12 figures, RevTeX
Coupling Between Thermal Oscillations in the Surface of a Micro-Cylinder and Vortex Shedding
his article studies the coupling between prescribed thermal oscillations in the surface of a micro-cylinder and vortex shedding. We deal with the unsteady, laminar, compressible flow regime where the aerodynamics forces have a periodic behavior. It is shown that appropriate spatial and time-dependent temperature oscillations on the surface of the micro-cylinder create a resonance that controls the amplitude and frequency of both lift and drag coefficients. In practice, what we study is a mechanism to modulate the amplitude and frequency of mechanical loads of aerodynamics origin in a micro-structure by using surface temperature fluctuations as the control parameter
Reduction of the Casimir force using aerogels
By using silicon oxide based aerogels we show numerically that the Casimir
force can be reduced several orders of magnitude, making its effect negligible
in nanodevices. This decrease in the Casimir force is also present even when
the aerogels are deposited on metallic substrates. To calculate the Casimir
force we model the dielectric function of silicon oxide aerogels using an
effective medium dielectric function such as the Clausius-Mossotti
approximation. The results show that both the porosity of the aerogel and its
thickness can be use as control parameters to reduce the magnitude of the
Casimir force.Comment: to appear J. Appl. Phy
The effect of local thermal fluctuations on the folding kinetics: a study from the perspective of the nonextensive statistical mechanics
Protein folding is a universal process, very fast and accurate, which works
consistently (as it should be) in a wide range of physiological conditions. The
present work is based on three premises, namely: () folding reaction is a
process with two consecutive and independent stages, namely the search
mechanism and the overall productive stabilization; () the folding kinetics
results from a mechanism as fast as can be; and () at nanoscale
dimensions, local thermal fluctuations may have important role on the folding
kinetics. Here the first stage of folding process (search mechanism) is focused
exclusively. The effects and consequences of local thermal fluctuations on the
configurational kinetics, treated here in the context of non extensive
statistical mechanics, is analyzed in detail through the dependence of the
characteristic time of folding () on the temperature and on the
nonextensive parameter .The model used consists of effective residues
forming a chain of 27 beads, which occupy different sites of a D infinite
lattice, representing a single protein chain in solution. The configurational
evolution, treated by Monte Carlo simulation, is driven mainly by the change in
free energy of transfer between consecutive configurations. ...Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
The critical dimension for a 4th order problem with singular nonlinearity
We study the regularity of the extremal solution of the semilinear biharmonic
equation \bi u=\f{\lambda}{(1-u)^2}, which models a simple
Micro-Electromechanical System (MEMS) device on a ball B\subset\IR^N, under
Dirichlet boundary conditions on . We complete
here the results of F.H. Lin and Y.S. Yang \cite{LY} regarding the
identification of a "pull-in voltage" \la^*>0 such that a stable classical
solution u_\la with 0 exists for \la\in (0,\la^*), while there is
none of any kind when \la>\la^*. Our main result asserts that the extremal
solution is regular provided while is singular () for , in which case
on the unit ball, where
and .Comment: 19 pages. This paper completes and replaces a paper (with a similar
title) which appeared in arXiv:0810.5380. Updated versions --if any-- of this
author's papers can be downloaded at this http://www.birs.ca/~nassif
Experimental signatures of the quantum-classical transition in a nanomechanical oscillator modeled as a damped driven double-well problem
We demonstrate robust and reliable signatures for the transition from quantum
to classical behavior in the position probability distribution of a damped
double-well system using the Qunatum State Diffusion approach to open quantum
systems. We argue that these signatures are within experimental reach, for
example in a doubly-clamped nanomechanical beam.Comment: Proceedings of the conference FMQT 1
The time singular limit for a fourth-order damped wave equation for MEMS
We consider a free boundary problem modeling electrostatic microelectromechanical systems. The model consists of a fourth-order damped wave equation for the elastic plate displacement which is coupled to an elliptic equation for the electrostatic potential. We first review some recent results on existence and non-existence of steady-states as well as on local and global well-posedness of the dynamical problem, the main focus being on the possible touchdown behavior of the elastic plate. We then investigate the behavior of the solutions in the time singular limit when the ratio between inertial and damping effects tends to zero
Pull-in control in microswitches using acoustic Casimir forces
In this paper we present a theoretical calculation of the acoustic Casimir
pressure in a model micro system. Unlike the quantum case, the acoustic Casimir
pressure can be made attractive or repulsive depending on the frequency
bandwidth of the acoustic noise. As a case study, a one degree of freedom
simple-lumped system in an acoustic resonant cavity is considered. We show that
the frequency bandwidth of the acoustic field can be tuned to increase the
stability in existing microswitch systems by selecting the sign of the force.
The acoustic intensity and frequency bandwidth are introduced as two additional
control parameters of the microswitch
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