Achievement

The mechanical frequency response or the resonance frequency found in harmonic oscillators has played an important role in technological development. It is the fact that the response of the oscillator is not linear with frequency that enables them to be used as sensors, switches and data storage devices. IGERT trainee Tom Parker at RPI developed a method that can measure ultra high resonance frequency in the sub THz range from a single nanospiral or nanorod grown by oblique angle vapor deposition using the non-contact mode of atomic force microscope (NCM AFM). The effect of coupling between the AFM probe and a sample on the measured resonant frequency for NCM AFM was analytically evaluated. The NCM AFM was determined to be a superior candidate for the ultra high resonant frequency measurements due to the gentle nature of the probe sample coupling. The details are in his PhD thesis and a paper published in Sensors and Actuator in 2009.