Plasmonic lithography with a contact probe records nano-meter scale features and has high-throughput owing to its capability to scan in contact mode. The probe is commonly based on a micrometer-scale cantilever, which leads to the tip-positioning problem due to force-deflection that induces lateral tip displacement. We propose a geometrically modified probe to achieve high positioning accuracy....

We have developed a process for the three-dimensional (3D) machining of p-type silicon on a microand nano-scale using high-energy ion beam irradiation with one or more energies and fluences, followed by electrochemical anodization in hydrofluoric acid. We present a study of the dependence of our fabricated structures on irradiating ion energies, fluences, geometries and wafer resistivity. All t...

The cantilever sensor, which acts as a transducer of reactions between model bacterial cell wall matrix immobilized on its surface and antibiotic drugs in solution, has shown considerable potential in biochemical sensing applications with unprecedented sensitivity and specificity. The drug-target interactions generate surface stress, causing the cantilever to bend, and the signal can be analyze...

Cantilever vibration in fluid environment is probably one of the most common Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) problems in the field of Micro/Nano Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS/NEMS). Usually the effect of fluid on cantilever oscillation is characterized in terms of mode resonance frequencies and quality factors (Qs), being those two physical quantities what is actually measured in the dynam...

Micro-cantilevers are frequently used as scanning probes and sensors in micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS). Usually micro-cantilever based sensors operate by detecting changes in cantilever vibration modes (e.g., bending or torsional vibration frequency) or surface stresses when a target analyte is adsorbed on the surface. The catalyst for chemical reactions (i.e., for a specific analyte) c...

Since its introduction in 1986 as a tool for imaging and creating three-dimensional micrographs with resolution down to the nanometer and angstrom scales, the scanning probe microscope (SPM) has increasingly been acclaimed as a quantitative probe of surface forces such as adhesion. The SPM is able to study these important parameters using a technique that measures forces on the probe as it appr...

Among the intermolecular interactions, the Casimir and van der Waals forces are the most important forces that highly affect the behavior of nanostructures. This paper studies the effect of such forces on the adhesion of cantilever freestanding nanostructures. The nanostructures are made of a freestanding nano-beam which is suspended between two upper and lower conductive surfaces. The linear s...

The single-walled carbon-nanotube ~SWNT! was grown directly onto the top of the conventional Si atomic force microscopy ~AFM! cantilever. This SWNT AFM cantilever was introduced into the AFM nano-oxidation process, which oxidized the titanium ~Ti! metal film on the atomically flat a-Al2O3 substrate and formed the ultranarrow oxidized titanium (TiOx) line of 5 nm width. This TiOx line was used a...