Abstract
Polydimethylsiloxane micro structures such as cantilevers have been shown useful for nanomechanical measurement of biomolecules, living cells, and soft matter. As a fundamental characterization, we report the thermomechanical noise measurement of flextual modes of polydimethylsiloxane cantilevers, fabricated multilayer soft-lithography. From the resonance frequency data, we extract the values of Young’s moduli for different cross linking ratios. Our devices have measured resonance frequencies and quality factor ranging from 405 Hz to 1.63 kHz and from 5 to 10. The spring constants is ~10-4 N/m, 100 times smaller than commercially available atomic force microscope cantilever and the force resolution is in the pico newton range. Our experimental data and analysis show that such cantilevers will be capable of performing the nanomechanical measurement at single molecular level.