Transduction Principles and Integration of Chemical Sensors Into a Micromechanical Array Device

Ultraprecise measurement tools are indispensable components for most scientific engineering enterprises and for manufacturing process controls. For such applications, micromechanical devices are potentially very promising because a variety of chemical and physical effects can be transduced into a mechanical response on the nanometer scale. Here we discuss micromechanical cantilever-based devices designed and operated to attain ultimate limits in sensitivity and speed, which is achieved by minimizing the sensor size. Such sensors have been used to analyze an entire range of transduction mechanisms down to the nanogram, picoliter, femtojoule, and attomole level. In particular, we use microengineering technologies to design and fabricate a Nanotechnology olfactory sensor (NOSE) device with a volume of only approx. 1 mm3. A new sequential readout technique, the fabrication process of cantilever sensor arrays, and the data acquisition electronics components used for sensor experiments are described in detail.