Unified design and control for biological applications of carbon nanotube-tipped microcantilever

This paper discusses the control of microcantilever with multi-walled carbon nanotube tip. To facilitate the use of CNTs as nanomanipulator and probe tip, open-loop and closed-loop performances are studied based on a distributed parameter system model. The carbon nanotube tipped microcantilevers of three different dimensions are compared to investigate the effect of the dimension to manipulation and imaging capability. Simulations show that with carefully selected dimensions the carbon nanotube-tipped microcantilever can demonstrate an excellent capability for nanomanipulation and tapping mode operation for imaging under a simple PID controller.