Micro-cantilever resonance sensor for biomolecular detection by using self-assembly nano-particles

Abstract

In recent years, highly sensitive and selective as well as cost-effective sensing and detection of bio-molecules (e.g. virus, bacterial, DNA and protein) by MEMS/NEMS (Micro-/Nano Electro- Mechanical-System) structures have attracted extensive attention for its importance in clinical diagnostics, treatment, and various genome projects. Meanwhile, Substantial research efforts have been spent on the improvement of sensitivity of BioMEMS structures. Among a variety of methods that have been investigated, surface modification by nanoparticles (NPs) turns out to be an attractive way, which provides a platform for the enhancement of the sensitivity for biosensor devices. However, conventional applications for surface modification were mostly implemented on microelectrodes. This paper is going to present the self-assembly surface binding of nano-gold particle and functional MWCNT on the cantilever sensor, which can easily facilitate biomolecular detection by resonance frequency shift. Its sensitivity can be improved due to the large binding area of probes to the targeting biomolecules. The LPCVD SiN low-stress rectangular cantilever is produced by laser micromachining and alkaline KOH etching, which is a maskless, simple, convenient, fast-prototyping way to produce such cantilever sensor for biomolecular detection. The commercially available Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) cantilevers are also used to verify the concept.