Abstract
We investigated the photothermal excitation of a mechanical resonator consisting of a carbon nanotube cantilever. Higher mode oscillations were successfully measured resulting from the elimination of parasitic vibrations. Based on a simple lumped model for the photothermally excited carbon nanotube cantilever, the thermal relaxation time of less than 20 ns was successfully extracted from resonant properties. As a result, the sub-fJ/K resolution of the heat capacity measurement was achieved using the carbon nanotube cantilever with a minute heat capacity of ∼60 fJ/K.