Nanotube-Based NEMS: Control vs. Thermodynamic Fluctuations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how thermodynamic fluctuations impact the control of nanotube-based NEMS, using multi-scale simulations and modeling to identify conditions for effective operation at small scales.

Contribution

It introduces a combined simulation and modeling approach to analyze thermodynamic noise effects on nanotube NEMS control, highlighting size-dependent limitations.

Findings

Thermal noise significantly affects NEMS control at small scales.

Control parameters are limited by thermodynamic fluctuations.

A phenomenological model predicts control feasibility based on system parameters.

Abstract

Multi-scale simulations of nanotube-based nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) controlled by a nonuniform electric field are performed by an example of a gigahertz oscillator. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we obtain the friction coefficients and characteristics of the thermal noise associated with the relative motion of the nanotube walls. These results are used in a phenomenological one-dimensional oscillator model. The analysis based both on this model and the Fokker-Planck equation for the oscillation energy distribution function shows how thermodynamic fluctuations restrict the possibility of controlling NEMS operation for systems of small sizes. The parameters of the force for which control of the oscillator operation is possible are determined.