A cantilever type has been developed for dynamic force microscopy by the addition of a harmonic oscillator in the form of a paddle to atomic force microscopy cantilevers. These cantilevers provide resonant amplification of periodic interactions between the probe and the substrate when the laser is aligned on the paddle. The cantilevers were explored for their use in piezoresponse force microsco...

V-shaped cantilevers are used widely in the atomic force microscope ~AFM! due to their perceived enhanced resistance to lateral forces in comparison to rectangular cantilevers. In this article, we rigorously investigate this premise, and in so doing establish that, contrary to established operating principles and intuition, V-shaped AFM cantilevers are generally more prone to the effects of lat...

We are fabricating radio-frequency silicon nitride cantilevers for the use in scanning probe microscopy. These cantilevers will be used to study dielectric fluctuations above thin polymers films and charging behavior in organic field-effect transistors. Further, we have fabricated doublyclamped cantilevers of similar dimension and constituency and employed a magnetomotive scheme to measure thei...

We report the specific transduction, via surface stress changes, of DNA hybridization and receptor-ligand binding into a direct nanomechanical response of microfabricated cantilevers. Cantilevers in an array were functionalized with a selection of biomolecules. The differential deflection of the cantilevers was found to provide a true molecular recognition signal despite large nonspecific respo...

In this paper a new method of fabricating cylindrical resin microcantilevers using the Direct Digital Manufacturing (DDM) technique of Micro-stereolithography (MSL) is described. The method is rapid and commercially viable, allowing the fabrication of atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers which exhibit much larger spring constants than those currently commercial available. This allows for e...

The in-plane deformation of atomic force microscope ~AFM! cantilevers under lateral loading is commonly assumed to have negligible effect in comparison to other deformation modes and ignored. In this article, we present a theoretical study of the behavior of cantilevers under lateral loading, and in so doing establish that in-plane deformation can strongly contribute to the total deformation, p...

The stochastic dynamics of micron and nanoscale cantilevers immersed in a viscous fluid are quantified. Analytical results are presented for long slender cantilevers driven by Brownian noise. The spectral density of the noise force is not assumed to be white and the frequency dependence of the noise force is determined from the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. The analytical results are shown t...

The atomic force microscope (AFM) can provide qualitative information by numerous imaging modes, but it can also provide quantitative information when calibrated cantilevers are used. In this article a new technique is demonstrated to calibrate AFM cantilevers using a reference piezolever. Experiments are performed on 13 different commercially available cantilevers. The stiff cantilevers, whose...

nanotechnology is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale which may exert a revolutionary impact on cancer diagnosis and therapy. nanotechnology is being applied to cancer in two broad areas: i) the development of nanovectors such as nanoparticles which can be loaded with drugs or imaging agents and then targeted to tumours, and ii) high-throughput nanosensor devices for de...

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 (...