Abstract
It is very important to measure a minute mass in many fields, of physical, chemical, and biochemical sciences. One of the methods to measure minute mass is using cantilever-based resonators. The method’s basic principle is to measure the mass sensor’s resonance frequency shift and translate the measurement into the mass of the mass load. In this study, we have investigated the influence of added mass of different positions experimentally, with in situ ultra high vacuum transmission electron microscopy, and compared the experiment results with analytical expression. This experiment uses carbon nanotube as cantilevers and silver nanoparticle as added mass. The cantilever’s frequency shift with an attached silver nanoparticle is verified experimentally, and is determined as a function of the nanoparticle position. The mass sensitivity for the carbon nanotube based resonators in our experiments is less than 10-18 g.