Buckled nano rod - a two state system: quantum effects on its dynamics

We consider a suspended elastic rod under longitudinal compression. The compression can be used to adjust potential energy for transverse displacements from harmonic to double well regime. The two minima in potential energy curve describe two possible buckled states. Using transition state theory (TST) we have calculated the rate of conversion from one state to other. If the strain $ε= 4 ε_c$ the simple TST rate diverges. We suggest a method to correct this divergence for quantum calculations. We also find that zero point energy contributions can be quite large so that single mode calculations can lead to large errors in the rate.

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