Material research as well as the development of nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) relies on accurate measurements of forces and deflections at the scale of the objects to be tested. In case of nanomechanics, this usually requires:

• the observation of the sample by a scanning electron microscope
  
• force measurement and microassembly in the range from nanonewtons to millinewtons
  
• deflection measurement in the range of nanometers to micrometers
  

To fulfill these requirements, a nanomechanical testing system has been developed to perform compression and tensile tests directly inside a scanning electron microscope. The system includes a 5-axis piezoelectric nanopositioning system and a MEMS-based microforce sensing probe for the quantitative mechanical testing at the nanoscale.

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Bio

Dr. Felix Beyeler received the M.S. degree in mechanical engineering from ETH Zurich, Switzerland in 2004, and the Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, ETH Zurich in 2008. In 2007, Felix co-founded the company FemtoTools to commercialize the technology which his team had developed. Since the foundation Felix is the CEO of the enterprise.

Felix is author of 30+ international publications, 6 patent applications and he is the winner of several awards including the ETH silver medal and the 2009 Swiss Technology Award. in 2014, FemtoTools AG was elected into the 2014 Robotics Business Review Top 50 list of the most influential companies in the robotics industry worldwide (BRB50).