Titanium implants commonly used in orthopedics and dentistry integrate into host bone by a complex and coordinated process. Despite increasingly well illustrated molecular healing processes, mechanical modulation of implant bone ingrowth is poorly understood. The objective of the present study was to determine whether micromechanical forces applied axially to titanium implants modulate bone ing...

A completely monolithic high-Q oscillator, fabricated via a combined CMOS plus surface micromachining technology, is described, for which the oscillation frequency is controlled by a polysilicon micromechanical resonator to achieve stability and phase noise performance comparable to those of quartz crystal oscillators. It is shown that the closed-loop, steady-state oscillation amplitude of this...

The Casimir force between uncharged metallic surfaces originates from quantum-mechanical zero-point fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. We demonstrate that this quantum electrodynamical effect has a profound influence on the oscillatory behavior of microstructures when surfaces are in close proximity (< or =100 nm). Frequency shifts, hysteretic behavior, and bistability caused by the Cas...

An experimental method, employing a scanning tunneling microscope ~STM! as an actuator and a scanning electron microscope ~SEM! as a motion detector, was developed to study microelectromechanical systems ~MEMS! and has been applied to study microfabricated cantilever beams. Vibrations actuated by an ac voltage applied to the piezodrive are transferred to the sample by the STM tip, which also pr...

Integrin-mediated mechanotransduction in vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) plays an important role in the physiological control of tissue blood flow and vascular resistance. To test whether force applied to specific extracellular matrix (ECM)-integrin interactions could induce myogenic-like mechanical activity at focal adhesion sites, we used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to apply controlled...

to describe the rheological behavior of polymer blends using emulsionbased (palierne theory) as well as micromechanical models (coranapproach), two immiscible polymeric blend systems of poly(trimethylene terephthalate) (ptt)/polyamide-12 (pa12) and ptt/polyethylene (pe) having different levels of molecular interactions were investigated as model systems. the role of interfacial interactions, vi...