Vibration and displacement analysis of carbon nanotube based cantilever for NEMS applications

The cantilever is a wide-ranging structure used in nano electromechanical (NEMS) applications including sensors, actuators or in probes for the detection of displacement, mass, and charge. High sensitivity, selectivity, wide dynamic range and fast response time are required for applications in real time monitoring. Carbon nanotubes provide exceptional electrical and mechanical properties like high tensile strength, large surface area, high elasticity, flexibility, high electrical and thermal conductivity which give rise to new sensing concepts. This paper proposes the design and analysis of cantilever made up of carbon nanotube using finite element method to analyze the displacement of cantilever gets affected by varying load. The effect of thickness change on the resonant frequency of the cantilever for CNT material is also analyzed. It is found that that the simulation values of displacement for carbon nanotube are 1.11E-5 at 10 N/m 2 and 5.56E-5 at 50 N/m 2 The simulation values of resonant frequency for CNT material are 4.42E7 at the thickness of 1nm and 6.73E8 at 15nm.