Realizing friction measurements for sing-atom contact using on-chip AFM

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25630034
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Design engineering/Machine functional elements/Tribology
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology
• Principal Investigator: ANDO YASUHISA 東京農工大学, 工学(系)研究科(研究院), 教授 (00344169)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 凝着力 / 摩擦力 / MEMS / 静電アクチュエータ / 単結晶シリコン / 接触面積 / 凝縮水

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Tribology characteristics were examined for a minimum contact area using the on-chip AFM in which the cantilever was mounted directly onto the substrate on which the 3-DOF microstage. An FEM analysis showed that the on-chip AFM achieved small thermal drifts. The fabricated on-chip AFM represented stage displacements of 1.1 μm and 1.5 μm in the vertical and lateral directions, respectively. For tribological evaluation, a negative load of －22.5 nN was applied between the Si probe and the Si translation stage surface, and raster scanning was performed at various scanning speeds between 0.1 μm/s and 100 μm/s, for measurement of friction force distribution. Friction force microscopy images were thus successfully obtained, and the average friction force for the entire scanning area represented a positive slope against scanning speed. The relations between friction force and load were examined and the minimum contact area was 4.5 square nanometers, which corresponded to 15 atoms.

Free Research Field

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