Fabrication and characterisation of piezoelectric microcantilever array with carbon nanotube tips assembled by nano-handling

摘要

Piezoelectric microcantilever transducers based on lead zirconate titanate (PZT) thin film have received considerable interest because of their wide potential applications in nanotechnology, biosensors and microelectromechanical systems. In this work a self-sensing and self-actuating PZT piezoelectric cantilever array is designed and fabricated for parallel dynamic atomic force microscope (AFM) imaging. Carbon nanotube (CNT) tips are assembled to some cantilevers of the array by nano-handling to enhance the imaging quality. Detailed fabrication process of the array and nano-assembly of CNT tips are reported and characterisations of ferroelectric, piezoelectric and mechanical properties of the array are carried out and presented in this paper.