Abstract
This paper reports electrothermal actuation of silicon microcantilevers having integrated resistive heaters. Periodic electrical excitation induced periodic resistive heating in the cantilever, while the cantilever deflection was monitored with a photodetector. Excitation was either at the cantilever resonant frequency, f0, f0 2, or f0 3. When the time averaged maximum cantilever temperature was 174 °C, the cantilever out-of-plane actuation amplitude was 484 nm near the cantilever resonance frequency of 24.9 kHz. This actuation was sufficiently large to operate the cantilever in intermittent contact mode and scan a calibration grating of height of 20 nm.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 126102 |
Journal | Review of Scientific Instruments |
Volume | 78 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 2007 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Instrumentation