Researchers in the Physics Department of St. Olaf College are using a uniquely designed, integrated nanoindenter-quartz microbalance apparatus to bridge the gap between the fundamental science of friction and the engineering of practical micromechanical systems. This level of micro-research requires extreme stability for the microbalance instrumentation. Since 2001, the lab has used negative-stiffness vibration isolation to achieve a high level of isolation in multiple directions, custom tailoring resonant frequencies to 0.5 Hz vertically and horizontally.
