Multimode brownian dynamics of a nanomechanical resonator in a viscous fluid

Brownian motion imposes a hard limit on the overall precision of a nanomechanical measurement. Here, we present a combined experimental and theoretical study of the Brownian dynamics of a quintessential nanomechanical system, a doubly clamped nanomechanical beam resonator, in a viscous fluid. Our theoretical approach is based on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem of statistical mechanics: we determine the dissipation from fluid dynamics; we incorporate this dissipation into the proper elastic equation to obtain the equation of motion; and the fluctuation-dissipation theorem then directly provides an analytical expression for the position-dependent power spectral density (PSD) of the displacement fluctuations of the beam. We compare our theory to experiments on nanomechanical beams immersed in air and water and obtain excellent agreement. Within our experimental parameter range, the Brownian-force noise driving the nanomechanical beam has a colored PSD due to the "memory"of the fluid; the force noise remains mode independent and uncorrelated in space. These conclusions are not only of interest for nanomechanical sensing but also provide insight into the fluctuations of elastic systems at any length scale.