Electroplated nickel microspring and low-friction precision linear slider: A novel micro-force sensing tool

This paper introduces a novel micro-force sensing approach utilizing an electroplated nickel microspring and a precision linear slider (PLS) for micro-tensile testing applications. After investigating the effects of friction forces in a PLS, an electroplated nickel microspring is designed, fabricated and integrated into the PLS, and the proposed micro-force sensor concept is validated through experimental results. The microspring fabricated in this paper is limited to forces up to 6 mN with the average sensitivity of 36.63 µN/µm. It is shown that the friction forces introduce uncertainties only to the forces less than 500 µN. The proposed approach allows the fabrication of micro-force sensors for the force ranges of up to tens of Millinewtons for different applications.