Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 060601 (2007) [4 pages]Activation Barrier Scaling and Crossover for Noise-Induced Switching in Micromechanical Parametric OscillatorsReceived 12 September 2006; revised 6 June 2007; published 6 August 2007 We explore fluctuation-induced switching in parametrically driven micromechanical torsional oscillators. The oscillators possess one, two, or three stable attractors depending on the modulation frequency. Noise induces transitions between the coexisting attractors. Near the bifurcation points, the activation barriers are found to have a power law dependence on frequency detuning with critical exponents that are in agreement with predicted universal scaling relationships. At large detuning, we observe a crossover to a different power law dependence with an exponent that is device specific. © 2007 The American Physical Society URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.060601
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.060601
PACS:
05.40.Ca, 05.45.−a, 89.75.Da
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