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Resonantly excited AlN-based microcantilevers for immunosensing

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Abstract

The purpose of this work is to study the performance of resonantly driven microcantilevers excited with a piezoelectric aluminium nitride thin film as a mass sensor for the detection of interactions in the field of immunosensing. Two cantilevers with different width (i.e. 300 and 200 μm), but constant length and thickness of 300 and 20 μm were considered. The figures of merit of these structures, such as the mass sensitivity and the limit of mass detection, were determined. According to the results obtained, a cantilever being 300 × 200 μm2 in size and a high frequency mode was the best combination to detect antibody/antigen interactions. The previous combination was applied to detect the affinity between rabbit immunoglobulin G (IgG) and the complementary anti-rabbit IgG produced in goat. The binding was registered as a shift of the resonance frequency of the mode under investigation and the correlation between the added mass and the measured shift is analysed.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-LaMancha project no PEIC11-0022-7430 and Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación project no DPI2009-07497. The authors would also like to thank Dr. Erwin Peiner (Technical University of Braunschweig) for the support during device fabrication. M. J. Oliver acknowledges financial support from BES-2007-16399.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica Automática y Comunicaciones, ETSI Industriales, Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, 13071, Ciudad Real, Spain

    M. J. Oliver, J. Hernando-García & J. L. Sánchez-Rojas

  2. Electronic Engineering Department, Hijjawi Faculty for Engineering Technology, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan

    A. Ababneh

  3. Chair of Micromechanics, Microfluidics/Microactuators, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology II, Saarland University, 66123, Saarbruecken, Germany

    H. Seidel

  4. Department of Microsystems Technology, Vienna University of Technology, 1040, Vienna, Austria

    U. Schmid

  5. Department Física Aplicada, ETSI Industriales, Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, 13071, Ciudad Real, Spain

    J. P. Andrés

  6. Wide Band Gap Materials Group, Institute for Materials Research (IMO) and Division IMOMEC, Hasselt University, Diepenbeek, Belgium

    P. Pobedinskas & K. Haenen

Authors
  1. M. J. Oliver
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  2. J. Hernando-García
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  3. A. Ababneh
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  4. H. Seidel
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  5. U. Schmid
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  6. J. P. Andrés
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  7. P. Pobedinskas
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  8. K. Haenen
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  9. J. L. Sánchez-Rojas
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Correspondence to M. J. Oliver.

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Oliver, M.J., Hernando-García, J., Ababneh, A. et al. Resonantly excited AlN-based microcantilevers for immunosensing. Microsyst Technol 18, 1089–1094 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-012-1444-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00542-012-1444-x

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