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Journal Article

Fabrication and characterization of a micromechanical sensor for differential detection of nanoscale motions.

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Burg,  T. P.
Research Group of Biological Micro- and Nanotechnology, MPI for biophysical chemistry, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Savran, C. A., Sparks, A. W., Sihler, J., Li, J., Wu, W. C., Berlin, D. E., et al. (2002). Fabrication and characterization of a micromechanical sensor for differential detection of nanoscale motions. Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, 11(6), 703-708. doi:10.1109/JMEMS.2002.805057.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0014-9D01-9
Abstract
We have micromachined a mechanical sensor that uses interferometry to detect the differential and absolute deflections of two adjacent cantilevers. The overall geometry of the device allows simple fluidic delivery to each cantilever to immobilize molecules for biological and chemical detection. We show that differential sensing is 50 times less affected by ambient temperature changes than the absolute, thus enabling a more reliable differentiation between specific cantilever bending and background effects. We describe the fabrication process and show results related to the dynamic characterization of the device as a differential sensor. The root-mean-squared (r.m.s.) sensor noise in water and air is ∼1 nm over the frequency range of 0.4-40 Hz. We also find that in air, the deflection resolution is limited only by the cantilever's thermomechanical noise level of 0.008 Å/Hz12/ over the frequency range of 40-1000 Hz.