SBIR Phase II: Encased Cantilevers for Ultra-Sensitive Force and Mass Sensing in Liquids

这一小型企业创新研究(SBIR)第二阶段项目将改进封装式原子力显微镜(AFM)悬臂梁的性能，降低其制造成本，并针对下一代扫描探针显微镜技术优化其性能。原子力显微镜是一种提供纳米尺度材料信息的主力技术，但在流体中操作时，其性能会受到粘性阻尼的影响。该项目将开发的封闭式悬臂显著降低了阻尼，导致了高力敏感度和性能，这与在空气中进行的AFM成像相同。这有助于对数据进行定量解释，并简化了仪器操作。封闭式悬臂梁是一种即插即用的替代品，只需更换探头，即可将现有仪器转变为尖端工具。这些产品的影响将在从生物到清洁能源再到材料科学的各个领域都能感受到。这项研究的第一个技术目标是创造新的悬臂几何结构，将我们的设备的性能推向理论极限。由于专门的半自动加工和质量控制工具的开发，第一阶段的研究产生了一种新的低成本制造封闭悬臂的技术。第二阶段研究的下一个技术目标是通过提高产量、增加批量和实施更多的制造自动化来进一步降低制造成本。我们希望展示低成本的加工方法，其中许多高质量的探头被有效地制造出来。第三个技术目标是为下一代扫描探针技术优化这些设备，包括定量纳米机械映射、高速成像和前景看好的新技术，如光感应力显微镜。在项目期结束时，我们将专门针对这些高增长应用程序优化产品。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will improve the performance of encased atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilevers, reduce their fabrication costs, and optimize their properties for next-generation scanned probe microscopy technologies. Atomic force microscopy is a workhorse technique for providing nanometer-scale information of materials, but its performance is compromised by viscous damping when operated in fluid. The encased cantilevers to be developed in this project significantly reduces damping, leading to high force sensitivity and performance which is identical to AFM imaging done in air. This aids quantitative interpretation of data and simplifies instrument operation. Encased cantilevers are a drop-in replacement, permitting the transformation of existing instruments into cutting-edge tools simply by exchanging the probe. The impacts of these products will be felt in fields from biology to clean energy to materials science.The first technical objective of this research is to create new cantilever geometries that push the performance of our devices to the theoretical limits. The Phase I research resulted in a novel low-cost technique to fabricate encased cantilevers, thanks to the development of specialized semi-automated processing and quality control tools. The next technical objective of Phase II research is to further reduce fabrication costs by improving yields, increasing batch size, and implementing more manufacturing automation. We expect to demonstrate low-cost processing methods in which many high quality probes are fabricated efficiently. The third technical objective is to optimize these devices for next-generation scanned probe technologies including quantitative nanomechanical mapping, high-speed imaging and promising novel techniques such as photo induced force microscopy. At the end of the project period we will have optimized products specifically targeting these high growth applications.