Micromechanical Cantilevers: Sensors For Femtoscale Science

The invention of the scanning force microscope linked the use of micromechanics and microscopy at the atomic scale. The extreme sensitivity of micromechanical devices combined with nanoscale science
techniques extends their use well beyond imaging surface properties. For ultraprecise measurements, 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. Cantilever-based sensors, used in configurations to detect mass, heat, and stress, allow the analysis of material properties down to the nanogram, picoliter, femtojoule, and attomole level. Combining various operating modes enables one to detect different interaction strengths with analytes and permits analysis of a variety of signal domains. Consequently, microengineering technologies have been used to design and fabricate a Nanotechnology olfactory sensor device (NOSE) consisting of cantilever arrays with a volume of only approx. 1 mm**3. Cantilever-based micromechanical devices operate in various media with high speed and sensitivity even in noisy environments, and offer applications, for example, to oenology or fragrance design.