12 Month Periodic Activity Report Public Summary
page 2
The aim of the work package 2 is to design, develop and test precise, wide band and low noise control and measurement electronics which will enable application and characterization of the fabricated PRONANO single cantilever as well as 1D and 2D sensor arrays.
In our experiments it is proposed to excite the resonance cantilever vibrations using the thermal heater (actuator) integrated with the spring beam. Simultaneously the cantilever oscillation will be detected by monitoring the output signal of the cantilever piezoresistor. The change of the cantilever vibration, which occurs under the influence of the force acting at the microcantilever tip, is a measure of distance between the microtip and the surface.
Therefore developing of the discrete (hybrid) electronics (for the single cantilever systems and up to 32 beam 1D sensor arrays) is foreseen which will detect the cantilever vibration and control the resonance and static beam deflection (WRUT, Microsystems). Based on these experiments we will design, fabricate, test and apply ASIC systems for the 2D sensor arrays (ID-MOS, ELMOS, WRUT). The designed hybrid and ASIC measurement and control systems will include selective preamplifier stage, detector of the cantilever oscillation amplitude, tip-surface distance controller and high resolution system for the excitation of the cantilever vibration. Additionally we propose to develop systems which will enable the operation of the PRONANO cantilevers in the self oscillation mode and the detection of the resonance frequency of the spring beam.
Fig. 0.2: Analogue PID controller (left) and high-speed RMS/DC converter (right)
A Phase Locked Loop circuitry is developed which enables application of the PRONANO cantilevers as self oscillating devices (Microsystems). Design, fabrication and testing of ASIC's electronics for the PRONANO cantilevers from 1D and 2D sensor arrays is investigated.
During the last 12 month specifications for the subcomponents were defined to ensure their compatibility with the test-bench system built at SIOS as well as other customized application tools to be built by the industrial partners (NaWoTec, Leica, Infinion) at the second stage of the project. The specifications were given in table 0.1.