DESIGN AND INTERFACE OF A MICROFABRICATED SCANNING FORCE SENSOR FOR COMBINED FORCE AND POSITION SENSING

摘要

This invention includes a microfabricated sensor (100) for micro- and nanomechanical testing and nanoindentation. The sensor (100) includes a force sensing capacitive comb drive (8) for the sensing of force applied to a sample, a position sensing capacitive comb drive (9) for the sensing of the position of a sample and a microfabricated actuator to apply a load to the sample. All sensor components mentioned above are monolithically integrated on the same silicon MEMS chip.