The influence of nonlinear damping on the response of a piezoelectric cantilever sensor in a symmetric or asymmetric configuration

We investigate the influence of nonlinear viscoelastic damping on the response of a cantilever sensor covered by piezoelectric layers in a symmetric or asymmetric configuration. We formulate an initial-boundary-value problem which consistently incorporates both geometric and material nonlinearities including the effect of viscoelastic damping which cannot be ignored for micro- and nano-mechanical sensor operation in a vacuum environment. We employ an asymptotic multiplescales methodology to yield the system nonlinear frequency response near its primary resonance and employ a model-based estimation procedure to deduce the system damping backone curve from controlled experiments in vacuum. We discuss the effect of nonlinear damping on sensor applications for scanning probe microscopy.