King, W.P., Kenny, T.W., Goodson, K.E., Cross, G., Despont, M., Durig, U., Rothuizen, H., Binnig, G.K., and Vettiger, P., 2001, “Atomic Force Microscope Cantilevers for Combined Thermomechanical Data Writing and Reading,” Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 78, pp. 1300-1302.
Abstract
PDFHeat conduction governs the ultimate writing and reading capabilities of a thermomechanical data storage device. This work investigates transient heat conduction in a resistively heated atomic force microscope cantilever through measurement and simulation of cantilever thermal and electrical behavior. The time required to heat a single cantilever to bit-writing temperature is near 1 microsecond and the thermal data reading sensitivity DR/R is near 1×10^-4 per vertical nm. Finite-difference thermal and electrical simulation results compare well with electrical measurements during writing and reading, indicating design tradeoffs in power requirements, data writing speed, and data reading sensitivity. We present a design for a proposed cantilever that is predicted to be faster and more sensitive than the present cantilever.