Transient analysis on nonlinear model of electrostatically actuated nanomechanical switch

This research predicted the transient behaviors of a nano-switch. The nano-switch consists of a cantilevered carbon nanotube incorporating the electrostatic forces and intermolecular attractive and repulsive forces between the CNT and graphene ground plane. To investigate the transient pull-in/out behaviors with large deflection of the CNT and different excitation frequency, our model includes geometric and inertial nonlinearities of the CNT. To solve this problem, we used the Galerkin discretization method and the numerical time integration technique. As a result, we identified that the nonlinear effect of CNT affects the pull-in behaviors calculating near the pull-in voltages with linear and nonlinear model. The nonlinear model had the lower pull-in voltage than that of the linear model. But, there are no significant differences between the linear and nonlinear model on pull-out behaviors. The contact bounce prevented the perfect pull-in when the nano-switch was switched quickly.