Exploring material properties by employing and modelling of microcantilevers

微悬臂用作原子力显微镜（AFM）中的传感器，以确定表面的形貌以及测量诸如附着力，刚度或电荷密度等特性。微型和纳米反杠杆也越来越多地被用作独立传感器，以检测微量的质量或确定小体积流体的密度和粘度。如果解释基于这种悬臂梁的数据，几乎总是假设悬臂梁表现出理想的行为，即它们可以被描述为具有完美几何形状的物体，并且它们的材料特性是准确已知的。然而，实际悬臂梁的测量确实显示出与理想行为的一些偏差，例如由于不完美的尺寸和偏离理想的几何形状。这可能导致在解释数据时出现错误，并对获得的结果产生影响。在这个项目中，我们将使用悬臂梁进行AFM测量，以探索材料特性，并模拟偏离理想悬臂梁行为对结果的影响。此外，我们计划通过模拟来探索不同于目前可用的几何形状的悬臂是否在探测某些特性方面更敏感。

Microcantilevers are used as sensors in atomic force microscopy (AFM) to determine the topography of surfaces as well as to measure properties such as adhesion, stiffness, or charge density, to name a few. Micro- and nanocantilevers are also increasingly employed as freestanding sensors to detect tiny amounts of masses or to determine the density and viscosity of small fluid volumes.If data based on such cantilevers is interpreted it is almost always assumed that the cantilevers show ideal behaviour, i.e., that they can be described as an object with perfect geometric shape and that their material properties are accurately known. Measurements with real cantilevers, however, do show some deviation from this ideal behaviour, for example due to non-perfect dimensions and a geometric shape that deviates from the ideal one. This can lead to errors when interpreting the data and has an influence on the results obtained.In this project we will use cantilevers for AFM measurements to explore material properties and to model what effect deviations from ideal cantilever behavior can have on the results. In addition, we plan to explore via simulations if cantilevers of geometric shapes that are different to those currently available might have advantages in being more sensitive to probing certain properties.