The initial run-in and long-term drift of the adhesive force between polycrystalline silicon MEMS sidewalls

In this paper we measure the evolution of adhesion between two polycrystalline silicon sidewalls of a microelectromechanical adhesion sensor during three million contact cycles. We execute a series of AFM-like contact force measurements with comparable force resolution, but using real MEMS multi-asperity sidewall contacts mimicking conditions in real devices. Adhesion forces are measured with a very high sub-nanonewton resolution using a recently developed optical displacement measurement method. Measurements are performed under well-defined, but different, low relative humidity conditions. We found three regimes in the evolution of the adhesion force. (I) Initial run-in with a large of cycle-to-cycle variability, (II) Stability with low variability, and (III) device-dependent long term drift. The results obtained demonstrate that although a short run-in measurement shows stabilization, this is no guarantee for long-term stable behavior. Devices performing similarly in region II, can drift very differently afterwards. The adhesion force drift during millions of cycles is comparable in magnitude to the adhesion force drift during initial run-in. The boundaries of the drifting adhesion forces are reasonably well described by an empirical model based on random walk statistics. This is useful knowledge when designing polycrystalline silicon MEMS with contacting surfaces.

On-chip torsion balances with femtonewton force resolution at room temperature enabled by carbon nanotube and graphene

The torsion balance, consisting of a rigid balance beam suspended by a fine thread, is an ancient scientific instrument, yet it is still a very sensitive force sensor to date. As the force sensitivity is proportional to the lengths of the beam and thread, but inversely proportional to the fourth power of the diameter of the thread, nanomaterials should be ideal building blocks for torsion balances. Here, we report a torsional balance array on a chip with the highest sensitivity level enabled by using a carbon nanotube as the thread and a monolayer graphene coated with Al nanofilms as the beam and mirror. It is demonstrated that the femtonewton force exerted by a weak laser can be easily measured. The balances on the chip should serve as an ideal platform for investigating fundamental interactions up to zeptonewton in accuracy in the near future.

A Microtissue Platform to Simultaneously Actuate and Detect Mechanical Forces via Non-Contact Magnetic Approach

Mechanical control is essential for adaptive regulation in biological systems. This work presents a magnetic, non-contact approach to simultaneous detection and actuation in a microscale tissue testbed. The platform builds upon previously developed passive mechanical platforms, where tissues self-assemble on flexible pillars. Standard detection is typically derived from microscope images and actuation is often conducted using invasive approaches. In the presented platform, actuation and detection, both derived from magnetic fields, are demonstrated with high spatial, temporal, and force resolution resulting in a detectable 0.6 µm step-size in air. The forced deflection range is +/-125 microns (+/-10% strain), and an arbitrary magnitude step-and-settle actuation is achieved in less than 1 ms. Engineered human cardiac microtissue is used to demonstrate the capabilities of the system, as cardiac tissues generate contractions and adapt to external forces. Spontaneous contractions are monitored for an hour by a built-in sensor with a signal-to-noise of 2. Cyclic actuation at 1 Hz using a 1 mT/mm magnetic field is demonstrated, where max tissue strain is 0.3%. All this is achieved in a moderate-throughput, compact device, which is easily integrated into the typical flow of biological experimentation. Simultaneous control of actuation and detection enables decisions to be made on a sample-specific basis, and in future developments, will enable arbitrary design of the mechanical environment for 3D tissue conditioning, maturation, and control.

Improvements in fundamental performance of in-liquid frequency modulation atomic force microscopy

In-liquid frequency modulation atomic force microscopy (FM-AFM) has been used for visualizing subnanometer-scale surface structures of minerals, organic thin films and biological systems. In addition, three-dimensional atomic force microscopy (3D-AFM) has been developed by combining it with a three-dimensional (3D) tip scanning method. This method enabled the visualization of 3D distributions of water (i.e. hydration structures) and flexible molecular chains at subnanometer-scale resolution. While these applications highlighted the unique capabilities of FM-AFM, its force resolution, speed and stability are not necessarily at a satisfactory level for practical applications. Recently, there have been significant advancements in these fundamental performances. The force resolution was dramatically improved by using a small cantilever, which enabled the imaging of a 3D hydration structure even in pure water and made it possible to directly compare experimental results with simulated ones. In addition, the improved force resolution allowed the enhancement of imaging speed without compromising spatial resolution. To achieve this goal, efforts have been made for improving bandwidth, resonance frequency and/or latency of various components, including a high-speed phase-locked loop (PLL) circuit. With these improvements, now atomic-resolution in-liquid FM-AFM imaging can be performed at ∼1 s/frame. Furthermore, a Si-coating method was found to improve stability and reproducibility of atomic-resolution imaging owing to formation of a stable hydration structure on a tip apex. These improvements have opened up new possibilities of atomic-scale studies on solid-liquid interfacial phenomena by in-liquid FM-AFM.

Simulating the complexity of the dark matter sheet I: numerical algorithms

ABSTRACT At early times, dark matter has a thermal velocity dispersion of unknown amplitude which, for warm dark matter (WDM) models, can influence the formation of non-linear structure on observable scales. We propose a new scheme to simulate cosmologies with a small-scale suppression of perturbations that combines two previous methods in a way that avoids the numerical artefacts which have so far prevented either from producing fully reliable results. At low densities and throughout most of the cosmological volume, we represent the dark matter phase sheet directly using high-accuracy interpolation, thereby avoiding the artificial fragmentation which afflicts particle-based methods in this regime. Such phase-sheet methods are, however, unable to follow the rapidly increasing complexity of the denser regions of dark matter haloes, so for these we switch to an N-body scheme which uses the geodesic deviation equation to track phase-sheet properties local to each particle. In addition, we present a novel high-resolution force calculation scheme based on an oct-tree of cubic force resolution elements which is well suited to approximate the force field of our combined sheet+particle distribution. Our hybrid simulation scheme enables the first reliable simulations of the internal structure of low-mass haloes in a WDM cosmology.

Numerical convergence of hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation: the abundance and internal structure of galaxies and their cold dark matter haloes

ABSTRACT We address the issue of numerical convergence in cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations using a suite of runs drawn from the eagle project. Our simulations adopt subgrid models that produce realistic galaxy populations at a fiducial mass and force resolution, but systematically vary the latter in order to study their impact on galaxy properties. We provide several analytic criteria that help guide the selection of gravitational softening for hydrodynamical simulations, and present results from runs that both adhere to and deviate from them. Unlike dark matter-only simulations, hydrodynamical simulations exhibit a strong sensitivity to gravitational softening, and care must be taken when selecting numerical parameters. Our results – which focus mainly on star formation histories, galaxy stellar mass functions and sizes – illuminate three main considerations. First, softening imposes a minimum resolved escape speed, vϵ, due to the binding energy between gas particles. Runs that adopt such small softening lengths that $v_\epsilon \gtrsim 10\, {\rm km\, s^{-1}}$ (the sound speed in ionized ${\sim }10^4\, {\rm K}$ gas) suffer from reduced effects of photoheating. Secondly, feedback from stars or active galactic nuclei may suffer from numerical overcooling if the gravitational softening length is chosen below a critical value, ϵeFB. Thirdly, we note that small softening lengths exacerbate the segregation of stars and dark matter particles in halo centres, often leading to the counterintuitive result that galaxy sizes increase as softening is reduced. The structure of dark matter haloes in hydrodynamical runs respond to softening in a way that reflects the sensitivity of their galaxy populations to numerical parameters.

Optical lace for synthetic afferent neural networks

Whereas vision dominates sensing in robots, animals with limited vision deftly navigate their environment using other forms of perception, such as touch. Efforts have been made to apply artificial skins with tactile sensing to robots for similarly sophisticated mobile and manipulative skills. The ability to functionally mimic the afferent sensory neural network, required for distributed sensing and communication networks throughout the body, is still missing. This limitation is partially due to the lack of cointegration of the mechanosensors in the body of the robot. Here, lacings of stretchable optical fibers distributed throughout 3D-printed elastomer frameworks created a cointegrated body, sensing, and communication network. This soft, functional structure could localize deformation with submillimeter positional accuracy (error of 0.71 millimeter) and sub-Newton force resolution (~0.3 newton).

Toward Accurate Quantitative Elasticity Mapping of Rigid Nanomaterials by Atomic Force Microscopy: Effect of Acquisition Frequency, Loading Force, and Tip Geometry

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has emerged as a popular tool for the mechanical mapping of soft nanomaterials due to its high spatial and force resolution. Its applications in rigid nanomaterials, however, have been underexplored. In this work, we studied elasticity mapping of common rigid materials by AFM, with a focus on factors that affect the accuracy of elasticity measurements. We demonstrated the advantages in speed and noise level by using high frequency mechanical mapping compared to the classical force volume mapping. We studied loading force dependency, and observed a consistent pattern on all materials, where measured elasticity increased with loading force before stabilizing. Tip radius was found to have a major impact on the accuracy of measured elasticity. The blunt tip with 200 nm radius measured elasticity with deviation from nominal values up to 13% in different materials, in contrast to 122% by the sharp tip with 40 nm radius. Plastic deformation is believed to be the major reason for this difference. Sharp tips, however, still hold advantages in resolution and imaging capability for nanomaterials.

Super-resolution force spectroscopy reveals ribosomal motion at sub-nucleotide steps

Combination of ultrasound radiation and automated atomic magnetometer provides ultrahigh molecular force resolution that can resolve sub-nucleotide ribosomal motion.

A Comprehensive Set of Impact Data for Common Aerospace Metals

The results of two sets of impact experiments are reported within. To assist with model development using the impact data reported, the materials are mechanically characterized using a series of standard experiments. The first set of impact data comes from a series of coefficient of restitution (COR) experiments, in which a 2 m long pendulum is used to study “in-context” measurements of the coefficient of restitution for eight different materials (6061-T6 aluminum, phosphor bronze alloy 510, Hiperco, nitronic 60A, stainless steel 304, titanium, copper, and annealed copper). The coefficient of restitution is measured via two different techniques: digital image correlation (DIC) and laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV). Due to the strong agreement of the two different methods, only results from the digital image correlation are reported. The coefficient of restitution experiments are in context as the scales of the geometry and impact velocities are representative of common features in the motivating application for this research. Finally, a series of compliance measurements are detailed for the same set of materials. The compliance measurements are conducted using both nano-indentation and micro-indentation machines, providing sub-nm displacement resolution and μN force resolution. Good agreement is seen for load levels spanned by both machines. As the transition from elastic to plastic behavior occurs at contact displacements on the order of 30 nm, this data set provides a unique insight into the transitionary region.