The probe tip of
a scanning tunneling microscope (coming in from the lower left) touches
a thin cantilever. In this way the STM tip excites the cantilever into
oscillation. Depending on where the tip touches the cantilever, the
resonant frequency of the cantilever will change much like a violin
string's frequency being altered by the touch of a finger. The picture
itself is made with scanning electron microscopy.
Reported by:
Zalalutdinov et al., Applied Physics Letters, 13 November 2000
Associated
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