Design of Power-Optimized Thermal Cantilevers for Scanning Probe Topography Sensing

This paper reports on design optimization of cantilever-based thermal topography sensors using finite-element simulations, their fabrication and characterization. Measurements demonstrate vertical distance sensitivities DeltaR/R of 2times10
^-4
nm
^-1
, yielding sub-angstrom resolution at bandwidths of several tens of kHz and at powers on the order of 1 mW.