The transient response of a Duffing resonator following a parameter change

If driven with sufficient force a Duffing resonator has sharp transitions in both amplitude and phase at two critical frequencies which could be exploited to make sensitive sensors. In this paper new results are presented which show that when the resonator is driven hard to enhance the change in amplitude any change in the resonator parameters is followed by a delayed response. Results from numerical simulations and tests of a ´Duffing´ circuit are then presented that show that this undesirable behaviour can be avoided by carefully selecting the force used to drive the resonator. This proposed driving scheme is expected to give rise to fast, reliable, sensitive mass sensor.