Engineering Commons^™

Unconventional Uses Of Cantilevers For Chemical Sensing In Gas And Liquid Environments, Isabelle Dufour, Fabien Josse, Stephen M. Heinrich, C. Lucat, C. Ayela, F. Ménil, Oliver Brand

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Microcantilevers used as (bio)chemical sensors are usually coated with a chemically sensitive layer. The coated devices operate either in a static bending regime or in a dynamic flexural mode. While the coated devices operate generally well in both the static and dynamic mode, they do suffer from certain shortcomings depending on the medium of operation and the application, including lack of selectivity and of reversibility of the sensitive coating and a reduced quality factor due to the surrounding medium. In particular, the performance of microcantilevers excited in their standard out-of-plane dynamic mode drastically decreases in viscous liquid media. Moreover, the …