Microcantilever Actuation by Laser Induced Photoacoustic Waves

We present here a combined theoretical and experimental investigation on effective excitation of microcantilever by using photoacoustic waves. The photoacoustic waves arose from a vibrating Al foil induced by an intensity-modulated laser. We demonstrate that, superior to photothermal excitation, this new configuration avoids direct heating of the microcantilever, thus minimizing undesired thermal effects on the vibration of microcantilever, while still keeps the advantage of being a remote, non-contact excitation method. We also measured the vibration amplitude of the microcantilever as a function of distance between the microcantilever and the Al foil and found that the amplitudes decay gradually according to the inverse distance law. This method is universal and can be adopted in bio-microelectromechanical systems (BioMEMs) for the detection of small signals where detrimental thermal effects must be avoided.