A microcantilever of self-suspended carbon nanotube forest for material characterization and sensing applications Available to Purchase

This paper reports a laterally suspended microcantilever made entirely of a vertically aligned carbon nanotube (CNT) forest. The CNTs in a 1-mm-long cantilever, patterned using a post-growth microplasma technique, are preserved in their original alignment and structure, and are self-suspended only due to their entwined arrangement and internal interactions. This pure CNT forest cantilever is electrostatically actuated to characterize its resonance using a laser Doppler vibrometer, revealing a resonant frequency and quality factor of 7.95 kHz and 51.3, respectively, at room temperature. The measurement result fitted to a free vibrating microcantilever model indicates that the CNT forest, an anisotropic bulk material, has an in-plane Young's modulus of 3.8 MPa, which matches well with previously reported levels of the modulus. A preliminary test of the cantilever as a resonant-mode sensing device shows real-time temperature tracking, suggesting the device's potential for not only temperature sensing but also other sensing applications.