An integrated system of microcantilever arrays with carbon nanotube tips for bio/nano analysis: design and control

This paper discusses design and control of massively parallel microcantilever arrays with multi-walled carbon nanotube tips. The integrated system can make a powerful tool for imaging, testing and 3D nanomanipulation of nanoparticles and biological samples. The microcantilever has a multi-walled carbon nanotube tip and four additional carbon nanotubes for 3D fine manipulation by electrostatic forces. The reflected light from the deflected microcantilever is collected by a position sensitive photodetector and fast readout is achieved by a time-multiplexing scheme. A distributed parameter system model has been developed to study its dynamic behavior. The open-loop simulation results show that the carbon nanotube tip generates very small nonlinear interaction forces which do not excite significant higher harmonics. It is shown via simulations that the carbon nanotube tip demonstrates an excellent capability for nanomanipulation of samples and tapping mode operation for imaging under a simple PID controller.