Ji HF, Armon BD. Approaches to increasing surface stress for improving signal-to-noise ratio of microcantilever sensors.
Anal Chem 2010;
82:1634-42. [PMID:
20128621 PMCID:
PMC2836585 DOI:
10.1021/ac901955d]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Microcantilever sensor technology has been steadily growing for the last 15 years. While we have gained a great amount of knowledge in microcantilever bending due to surface stress changes, which is a unique property of microcantilever sensors, we are still in the early stages of understanding the fundamental surface chemistries of surface-stress-based microcantilever sensors. In general, increasing surface stress, which is caused by interactions on the microcantilever surfaces, would improve the S/N ratio and subsequently the sensitivity and reliability of microcantilever sensors. In this review, we will summarize (A) the conditions under which a large surface stress can readily be attained and (B) the strategies to increase surface stress in case a large surface stress cannot readily be reached. We will also discuss our perspectives on microcantilever sensors based on surface stress changes.
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