Abstract

MICROCANTILEVER SENSORS
Microcantilevers are the most simplified MEMS based devices. Microscopic
sensors spanning the width of a human hair were first developed by the researchers at the
US Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). These
hairlike, silicon-based devices are at least 1,000 times more sensitive and 1,000 times
smaller than currently used sensors. Each microsensor spans the width of a human hair.
Microcantilevers can be thought of as very small diving boards. Like a diving board
changes in the stresses on the board cause a microcantilever to bend. These detect and
measure relative humidity, temperature, pressure, flow, viscosity, sound, natural gas,
mercury vapor, ultraviolet and infrared radiation and DNA sequences and proteins. These
sensors have several advantages over the conventional analytical techniques in terms of
high sensitivity, low cost, simple procedure, low analyte requirement (in µl), non-
hazardous procedures and quick response.

They also have wide applications in the field of medicine, specifically for the
screening of diseases, blood glucose monitoring and detection of chemical and biological
warfare agents. Moreover, the technology has been developed in the last few years for the
fabrication and use of nanocantilevers for sensing applications, thereby giving rise to
nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS). This development has increased the sensitivity
limit up to the extent that researchers can now visualize the counting of molecules. With
the ability of high throughput analysis of analytes and ultra sensitive detection, this
technology holds tremendous promise for the next generation of miniaturized and highly
sensitive sensors.
Introduction

A microcantilever is a device that can act as a physical, chemical or biological

sensor by detecting changes in cantilever bending or vibrational frequency. It is the
miniaturized counterpart of a diving board that moves up and down at a regular interval.
This movement changes when a specific mass of analyte is specifically adsorbed on its
surface similar to the change when a person steps onto the diving board. But
microcantilevers are a million times smaller than the diving board having dimensions in
microns.

Microcantilever would bend in a measurable way if its tip is coated with a material
that attracts another material from the air, for example, a gold-coated cantilever absorbs
mercury vapor, which stiffens the cantilever, causing it to bend and changing the way it
vibrates. A gelatin tip absorbs water, measuring humidity.

These sensors can also respond sensitively to heat. A silicon microcantilever coated
with aluminum bends more with rising temperature because aluminum expands more
than silicon. Such a device can measure temperature and even detect infrared radiation
and heat-generating chemical reactions.

When set in motion, microcantilevers have a natural vibration that changes in the
presence of sound waves or a fluid (enabling measurements of viscosity and pressure).

Changes in cantilever position or vibration rate can be detected by measuring

wobble in reflected laser beams.
Mass sensitive detection by microcantilevers
Molecules adsorbed on a microcantilever cause vibrational frequency changes and
deflection of the microcantilever. Viscosity, density, and flow rate can be measured by
detecting changes in the vibrational frequency.

Figure 1. Different types of microcantilevers (top view) (a) Rectangular (b) Double-
legged (c) Triangular.

Another way of detecting molecular adsorption is by measuring deflection of the

cantilever due to absorption stress on just one side of the cantilever. Depending on the
nature of chemical bonding of the molecule, the deflection can be up or down. Biochips
with mechanical detection systems commonly use microcantilever bi-material (e.g. Au–
Si) beams as sensing elements. The Au side is usually coated with a certain receptor.
Upon the binding of the analyte (e.g. biological molecules, such as proteins or biological
agents) with the receptor, the receptor surface is either tensioned or relieved. This causes
the microcantilever to deflect, usually in nanometers. The deflection is proportional to the
analyte concentration.

Fig: single microcantilever

The optical deflection detection method
The optical method employs a laser beam of very low power of the order that does
not affect the biomolecules coated on the surface of the microcantilever and a position
sensitive detector (PSD). The laser beam falls on the cantilever and gets reflected as the
layer coated on the surface of the cantilever gives it an almost mirror like finish. The
reflected beam falls on the PSD. When the cantilever is undeflected i.e. it is not coated
with any molecule, the laser beam would fall on a particular spot on the PSD. As the
cantilever deflects, the position of the beam changes, which, in turn, is calculated using
appropriate electronics.

Figure 3. Schematic of an optical detection system for detecting microcantilever

deflection.

Capacitive Deflection Method

The capacitive method is based on the principle that when the cantilever deflection
takes place due to the adsorption of the analyte, the capacitance of a plane capacitor is
changed. Here the microcantilever is one of the two capacitor plates. This deflection
technique is highly sensitive and provides absolute displacement.
The Charge Coupled Device Detection Method

The position sensitive detector here is the CCD camera that records the laser beam
deflected from the cantilever.

Bending behaviour

Due to bending, a force F is acting at a distance of x in the neutral plane results in a

bending moment M=F.x. Therefore, the radius of curvature R is given by:

1/R = d2z/dx2 = M/EI

Where E is the apparent Young’s modulus and I is the moment of inertia given by the
following equation for rectangular beams

bh 3
I=
12

The change in the surface stress at one side of the beam will cause static bending, and the
bending moment can be calculated as:

∆σ bh
M=
2

Δσ = σ1 – σ2 is the differential surface stress with σ1 and σ2 as surface stress at the upper
and lower side of the cantilever respectively Inserting these values of I and M in the first
equation yields Stoney’s formula:

6(1 - υ ) ∆σ
1/R =
Eh 2
Taking into account the boundary conditions of a cantilever (R » L), the above equation
can be solved and the displacement of the cantilevers can be written as:

3L2 (1 - υ ) ∆σ
s=
Eh 2

Figure 4. Bending of a cantilever beam in response to compressive and tensile stresses.

(a) Compressive surface stress due to repulsion between the biomolecules leads to
downward/negative deflection of the cantilever beam. (b) Tensile surface stress due to
attraction between molecules leads to upward/positive deflection of the cantilever beam.

Figure 5. Lateral view of a thin cantilever beam of thickness t subjected to compressive

stress. σ1 is the stress at the upper surface and σ2 is the stress at the lower surface of the
cantilever. The cantilever beam bends with a constant radius of curvature R.
Materials used

The commercial cantilevers are typically made of silicon, silicon nitride, or silicon
oxide and are available in a wide variety of different shapes, dimensions, and force
sensitivities. Recent developments combine the latest integrated circuit (IC) and
complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technologies to produce
intelligent extremely small cantilevers in the form of an array.

Applications of Microcantilevers

• BioSensing
• Drug Discovery
• Chemical Detection
• Thermal Detection
• Vibration monitors
• Infrared and UV radiation
Conclusion

Microcantilevers have got potential applications in every field of science ranging from
physical and chemical sensing to biological disease diagnosis. The major advantages of
employing microcantilevers as sensing mechanisms over the conventional sensors
include their high sensitivity, low cost, low analyte requirement (in µl), non-hazardous
procedure with fewer steps (obviating the need for labels), quick response and low power
requirement. Most important is the fact that an array of microcantilevers can be employed
for the diagnosis of large numbers of analytes such as various disease biomarkers of a
single disease in a single go thus having tremendous high throughput analysis
capabilities.