Manipulating Vibration Energy Confinement in Electrically Coupled Microelectromechanical Resonator Arrays

This paper reports the first detailed experimental evidence of the phenomena of eigenvalue loci veering and vibration mode localization in microelectromechanical resonator arrays subjected to weak electroelastic coupling. A rapid but continuous interchange of the eigenfunctions associated with the eigenvalues is experimentally observed during veering as the variations in the eigenvalues are studied for induced stiffness variations on one of the coupled resonators. It is also noticed that the electrical tunability of the coupling spring constant in such microsystems enables a manipulation of the severity of modal interchange during veering and in consequence, the extent of energy confinement within the system. These results, while experimentally confirming the elastic behavior of such electrical coupling elements, also suggest that such microsystems provide a unique platform for investigating the general nature and properties of these dynamic phenomena under significantly weaker tunable coupling spring constants that are very difficult to implement in corresponding “macroscopic” systems.