Experimental determination of the spring constant of an individual multiwalled carbon nanotube cantilever using fluorescence measurement

Abstract

We report an experimental method to determine the spring constant of a multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWNT) cantilever as a mechanical piconewton force transducer. Electrostatic actuation was employed to investigate the mechanical properties of a MWNT cantilever. In order to measure nanotube's deflection during actuation, fluorescent dyes were noncovalently attached to the end of the nanotubes. Also, the length dependence of the spring constant is studied by adjusting the length of MWNT via electrochemical etching. The results show that the spring constant of a MWNT cantilever is as small as 0.001 N/m and tunable in the range of 0.001-0.05 N/m. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3176403]