Elsevier

Ultramicroscopy

Volume 146, November 2014, Pages 79-82
Ultramicroscopy

Short Communication
Effect of surface stress on microcantilever resonance frequency during water adsorption: influence of microcantilever dimensions

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ultramic.2014.06.007Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Positive resonance frequency shift observed in microcantilevers during adsorption.

  • Magnitude of positive frequency shift is dependent on microcantilever dimensions.

  • Positive frequency shift is attributed to adsorption induced stiffness changes.

  • Stiffness change found to increase with surface stress and cantilever dimensions.

  • Dimensional dependence of adsorption induced stiffness changes is demonstrated.

Abstract

This paper reports the effect of dimensions of microcantilever (MC) on its resonance frequency and bending upon adsorption of water molecules. Study is conducted on three MCs having the dimensions of 450×40×2.5 μm3 (MC1), 225×30×3 μm3 (MC2) and 125×35×4.5 μm3 (MC3). The measured resonant frequency showed the expected negative shift in MC1, initially positive followed by a negative shift in MC2 and only positive shift in MC3 during adsorption. This behavior is attributed to changes in the stiffness of the MC associated with the surface stress. The surface stress generated on the MC has been derived from its bending measurements upon water adsorption. The change in the stiffness of MC evaluated from an independent estimate of expected frequency shift showed that the relative stiffness change of MC increases linearly with the surface stress scaled with cube of width to height ratio of MCs, confirming the dimensional dependence of adsorption induced stiffness change.

Section snippets

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank Dr. P.R. Vasudeva Rao, Director, IGCAR for his support and encouragement. One of the author, KL acknowledges Department of Atomic energy, India for the award of senior research fellowship and Dr. A.K. Tyagi, Head, SND, MSG, IGCAR for guidance.

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