quality:corruption
Chemical sensor applications

A chemical sensor can be obtained by coating a recognition receptor layer over the upper side of a microcantilever beam. A typical application is the immunosensor based on an antibody layer that interacts selectively with a particular immunogen and reports about its content in a specimen. In the static mode of operation, the sensor response is represented by the beam bending with respect to a reference microcantilever. Alternatively, microcantilever sensors can be operated in the dynamic mode. In this case, the beam vibrates at its resonance frequency and a variation in this parameter indicates the concentration of the analyte. Recently, microcantilevers have been fabricated that are porous, allowing for a much larger surface area for analyte to bind to, increasing sensitivity by raising the ratio of the analyte mass to the device mass. Surface stress on microcantilever, due to receptor-target binding, which produces cantilever deflection can be analyzed using optical methods like laser interferometry. Zhao et al., also showed that by changing the attachment protocol of the receptor on the microcantilever surface, the sensitivity can be further improved when the surface stress generated on the microcantilever is taken as the sensor signal.