Modal Analysis Investigation of Mechanical Kerr Frequency Combs

TL;DR

This paper explores the theoretical feasibility of generating Kerr frequency combs in mechanical MEMS devices, drawing analogies with optical microresonators and deriving conditions for comb formation.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical framework and necessary conditions for mechanical Kerr comb generation in MEMS structures, a novel concept in the field.

Findings

Derived parameter conditions for mechanical Kerr combs

Proposed potential physical implementations

Extended optical Kerr comb concepts to mechanical systems

Abstract

The aim of this work is to theoretically investigate the possibility of Kerr frequency combs in mechanical systems. In particular, whether microelectrome-chanical devices (MEMS) can be used to generate frequency combs in a manner that is analogous to the optical frequency combs generated in optical microresona-tors with Kerr-type nonlinearity. The analysis assumes a beam-like micromechani-cal structure, and starting from the Euler-Bernoulli beam equation derives the nec-essary conditions in parameter space for the comb generation. The chapter equally presents potential means for the physical implementation of mechanical Kerr combs.