Design of power-optimized thermal cantilevers for scanning probe topography sensing

This paper reports on design optimization of cantilever-based thermal topography sensors using finiteelement simulations, their fabrication and characterization. Measurements demonstrate vertical distance sensitivities ΔR/R of 2×10-4 nm--1, yielding sub-angstrom resolution at bandwidths of several tens of kHz and at powers on the order of 1 mW. ©2009 IEEE.