Using flexural MEMS to study and exploit nonlinearities: a review

This review describes recent experimental developments in the study of nonlinearities for flexural microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) structures. It includes motivation for studying a variety of nonlinear phenomena, highlighting applications where nonlinearities are relevant. Examples are described where nonlinearities are seen as a nuisance, along with techniques used to mitigate the nonlinearities. More recently, efforts to exploit nonlinearities for improved performance have emerged and are also described. After a summary of the theory behind nonlinear mechanisms, the article describes progress in several areas of nonlinearity: engineering nonlinearities to enhance performance, bifurcations and multistability, parametric processes, frequency mixing, nonlinearly coupled resonances, and nonlinear dissipation.