| Zugriffsnummer | 23391 |
| Dokumenttyp | Konferenzartikel |
| Sprache | Englisch |
| Titel | Development of a multifunctional microelectromechanical nano-force actuator for calibration of the spring constant of an AFM cantilever |
| Autor(in); Institution |
Gao, Sai; 5.1, Oberflächenmesstechnik, PTB-Braunschweig
Zhang, Zhikai; Fachhochschule Wolfenbüttel, Wolfenbüttel, GERMANY
Wu, Yong; Tianjin University, Tianjin, P.R. CHINA
Herrmann, Konrad; 5.1, Oberflächenmesstechnik, PTB-Braunschweig
|
| Quelle/Jahr | Proceedings of the 9th international conference of the European Society for Precision Engineering and Nanotechnology : June 2nd - June 5th 2009, San Sebastian, Spain: 2 (2009), 267 - 270 |
| Herausgeber(in) |
Van Brussel, Hendrik
|
| ISBN | 978-0-9553082-6-0 |
| Verlag | Bedford: Euspen |
| Konferenzangaben | euspen 2009, San Sebastian, 02-05, June, 2009, Spain |
| Freie Schlagworte | microelectromechanical system ; nano-force actuator ; AFM cantilever ; spring constant |
| Zusammenfassung | Scanning probe microscopes, including atomic force microscopes (AFM), have become indispensable tools in the field of nano-technology, due to their outstanding spatial resolution, especially in lateral aspects. Although in most cases the AFM has been applied for the determination of the (geometrical) topography of an object under test, it is worth to notice that the demands for further applications of AFM, i.e. qualitatively to determine or even quantitatively to measure the electrical, magnetic, electrochemical and other properties of specimens, increase rapidly, creating plenty of variants of standard AFMs, e.g. lateral force microscopy (LFM), electric force microscopy (EFM), magnetic force microscopy (MFM), etc. In addition, the AFM has also been found in various applications for the determination of the mechanical properties of small volumes of materials, e.g. living cells, micro-organisms in the field of biology, medicine, food industry, etc. All these further applications of an AFM are, to a great extent, subject to the mechanical performance of the used cantilevers. Measurement and/or calibration of the mechanical performance of an AFM cantilever have/has therefore gained more and more interests in the past years, yielding several types of methods. Taken as examples, for a rectangular cantilever, provided that the geometrical parameters of the cantilever are well measured, its normal spring constant can then be deduced with a suitable analytical model from the measured resonant frequency and quality factor of the cantilever in air [1]. As for calibration of the lateral spring constant of a cantilever, step-height standards or a near-flat specimen with locally slopped surfaces have been utilized. Recently, we have also noticed that several types of MEMS (microelectromechanical system) –based devices have been designed to calibrate the normal and lateral spring constant of an AFM cantilever, respectively [2-3]. However, there is a lack of an all-in-one solution which could quantitatively calibrate the normal, lateral and torsional stiffness of an AFM cantilever with adequate resolution and accuracy, and without any pre-knowledge of the cantilever itself. Here a MEMS nano-force actuator is presented to fulfil the aforementioned demands to measure and calibrate the quasi-static mechanical properties of an AFM cantilever of any type, i.e. rectangular or triangular form, with/without reflective coating, etc. The cantilever-calibration-oriented nano-force actuator, which has a force resolution up to 1 nN, and an output force more than 1 mN, can be used to calibrate a cantilever with normal stiffness from 0.1 N/m to more than 100 N/m, and lateral stiffness up to 1 kN/m. The principle, numerical investigation, realization and fabrication of the nano-force actuator and related experiments will be detailed. |
