A 15-cantilever-type force-sensor unit is presented for the measurement of palatolingual contact stress and pattern during palatal consonant phonation. The force sensor unit is composed of a strain gauge and a cantilever, and is embedded in a thin palatal plate attached to the human hard palate. It is 3 mm wide, by 5 mm long, and 1.3 mm thick. The output of the force sensor unit at the low stre...

Considerable attention has been devoted to active vibration control using intelligent materials as PZT actuators. This paper presents results on active control schemes for vibration suppression of flexible steel cantilever beam with bonded piezoelectric actuators. The PZT patches are surface bonded near the fixed end of flexible steel cantilever beam. The dynamic model of the flexible steel can...

We present in-depth discussion of the design and optimization of a nanomechanical sensor using a silicon cantilever comprising a two-dimensional photonic crystal (PC) nanocavity resonator arranged in a U-shaped silicon PC waveguide. For example, the minimum detectable strain, vertical deflection at the cantilever end, and force load are observed as 0.0133%, 0.37 mum, and 0.0625 muN, respectivel...

This paper presents a new design and fabrication process of a multiple-thickness electrochemical cantilever sensor, in order to assess the role of the cantilever’s thickness on the chemically-induced mechanical effects. Each cantilever can act not only as a functionalized cantilever, but also as an independent working electrode (WE) for electrochemical measurement. The different thicknesses of ...

Photothermal excitation is an alternative cantilever drive mechanism for tapping mode atomic force microscopy. It uses a power-modulated laser focused on the cantilever to directly drive its oscillation, producing cantilever tunes that match the thermal response almost perfectly. This enables quantitatively accurate AFM imaging and viscoelastic nanomechanical mapping in all environments. In add...

Micro-cantilever sensors for mass detection using resonance frequency have attracted considerable attention over the last decade in the field of gas sensing. For such a sensing system, an oscillator circuit loop is conventionally used to actuate the micro-cantilever, and trace the frequency shifts. In this paper, gas experiments are introduced to investigate the mechanical resonance frequency s...

We present a theoretical investigation of stiction in nanoscale electromechanical contact switches. We develop a mathematical model to describe the deflection of a cantilever beam in response to both electrostatic and van der Waals forces. Particular focus is given to the question of whether adhesive van der Waals forces cause the cantilever to remain in the 'ON' state even when the electrostat...

A biomimetic acoustic sensor was fabricated with single crystal PMN-PT piezoelectric cantilever array that can mimic functional properties of mammalian cochlea. Basilar membrane of mammalian cochlea can separate frequency components of input sound source and Ion channel phenomenon of hair cells on basilar membrane can generate action potentials for stimulating a nerve site. The piezoelectric ca...

Energy harvester is a self-generating energy source which is able to run small scale electronic devices. It largely reduces the dependency on external power source. This paper represents the utilization of micro cantilever beam to develop a vibration based electromechanical systems (MEMS) piezoelectric energy harvester system. The proposed micro cantilever part has been developed by finite elem...

We show here that dynamic-mode cantilever sensors enable acoustofluidic fluid mixing and trapping of suspended particles as well as the rapid manipulation and release of trapped micro-particles via mode switching in liquid. Resonant modes of piezoelectric cantilever sensors over the 0 to 8 MHz frequency range are investigated. Sensor impedance response, flow visualization studies using dye and ...