Calibration and examination of piezoresistive Wheatstone bridge cantilevers for scanning probe microscopy

This paper describes the method of determining the force constant and displacement sensitivity of piezoresistive Wheatstone bridge cantilevers applied in scanning probe microscopy (SPM). In the procedure presented here, the force constant for beams with various geometry is determined based on resonance frequency measurement. The displacement sensitivity is measured by the deflection of the cantilever with the calibrated piezoactuator stage. Preliminary results show that our method is capable of measuring the force constant of Wheatstone bridge cantilevers with an accuracy of better than 5% and this is used as feedback for improvement of sensor micromachining process.