How to measure a force of 170 Zeptonewtons

Microscopic ladders made from silicon and diamond allow pushing the force sensitivity of AFM cantilevers to extremely low value

The "nanoladder" cantilevers consist of sub-micron thick rungs and cross-bars, and were fabricated in the FIRSTlab and BRNC cleanroom facilities available at ETH and IBM Zurich.

external page M. Heritier et al., Nano Letters 18, 1814 (2018).
 

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