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Published May 2006 | public
Journal Article

Self-Sensing Micro- and Nanocantilevers with Attonewton-Scale Force Resolution

Abstract

Thin, piezoresistive silicon cantilevers are shown to provide unprecedented sensitivity for force detection in an integrated, self-sensing, readily scalable configuration. The devices realized herein are patterned from single-crystal Si epilayer membranes utilizing bulk micro- and nanomachining processes. We demonstrate an electrically transduced force sensitivity of 235 aN/Hz^(1/2) at room temperature and 17 aN/Hz^(1/2) at 10 K. Enhancement of the p+ piezoresistive gauge factor is observed at cryogenic temperatures. The results are employed to elucidate the ultimate, low-temperature sensitivity attainable from self-sensing nanoelectromechanical systems utilizing displacement transduction based upon semiconducting piezoresistors.

Additional Information

© 2006 American Chemical Society. Received 6 February 2006. Published online 18 April 2006. Published in print 1 May 2006. We gratefully acknowledge support for this work from DARPA/MTO through SPAWAR Grant Number N66001-02-1-8914 and from the NSF under ECS-0089061. J.R.M. acknowledges support from a NSF graduate research fellowship. We also thank Tronic's Microsystems S.A., particularly Drs. Peter Pfluger, Natacha Raphoz, Ariel Cao, and Christian Pisella, for a fruitful collaborative work on wafer-scale NEMS fabrication.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 26, 2023