A simple interferometric method is described to measure the time-dependent deformation of piezoelectric bimorphs driven by ac voltage. Applying this method to a bimorph assembly used to measure viscoelastic forces in a surface forces apparatus, we find that a sinusoidal-shaped harmonic drive voltage generates sinusoidal deformation but that a triangular-shaped harmonic drive voltage fails to pr...

The most promising method for micro scale energy scavenging is via vibration energy harvesting which converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. Using piezoelectric cantilevers is the most common method for vibration energy harvesting. Changing the shape of the cantilevers can lead to changing the generated output voltage and power. In this work vibration energy harvesting via piezoelectri...

   During past decade the AFM based nanomanipulation has been focus of attention as the promising nano fabrication approach. The main challenge in this process is the real-time monitoring. Consequently, the dynamic models have been proposed as a solution to the existing challenge. In the modeling approach the magnitudes of the forces are proportional to the stiffness coefficients o...

V-shaped and triangular cantilevers are widely employed in atomic force microscope (AFM) imaging techniques due to their stability. For the design of vibration control systems of AFM cantilevers which utilize patched piezo actuators, obtaining an accurate system model is indispensable prior to acquiring the information related to natural modes. A general differential quadrature element method (...

This paper presents the fabrication technology for a novel class of photonic devices. This technology integrates silicon 2-D photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides and electrostatically actuated bimorph cantilevers with tips that are self-aligned relative to the holes of the PhC. The bimorph cantilevers modulate the propagation properties of the slab PhC depending on the proximity of the tips to the...

We report measurements of slip length at smooth and rough hydrophilic silica surfaces, using the hydrodynamic force measurement atomic force microscope (AFM). There has been some debate in the literature as to whether the boundary condition between a solid and a wetting fluid is one of no-slip or partial-slip; in particular the results of Neto et al. (C. Neto, V. S. J. Craig and D. R. M. Willia...

We present the fabrication process of a tool that can be used in standard atomic force microscope (AFM) for in situ characterization of chemical, chemical–mechanical or physical surface modification performed with the same device. The image obtained during scanning contains information about the modified and unmodified topographies for each scanning line, thus quantification of surface topograp...

A beam containing a piezoelectric layer or layers is used for harvesting from various processes. The structure of the made by gluing material on one side (unimorph) both sides (bimorph) carrying substrate. Two layers, glued substrate, may be electrically parallel series connected. This paper presents an experimental analysis impact and connections two Macro Fiber Composite (MFC) MFC patches in ...