Design and simulation of a biosensor based on a microelectromechanical resonator array

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Electronics Department - Faculty of Electrical Engineering - Sahand University of Technology - Tabriz - Iran

Abstract

The use of microfluidic systems for various applications such as lab-on-chip, drug delivery, and micro chemical reactors is increasing day by day and several sensors have been provided to control and develop these microsystems. In this paper, a biosensor based on microelectromechanical systems was introduced with direct application in liquid environment for digital microfluidic systems that have the ability to be integrated with various fluidics components such as delivery, separation, and mixing. The proposed sensor comprises  semi-sized coupled microresonators which vibrate in parallel to the substrate so that it can be integrated between the plane electrodes in digital microfluidics systems. Active area of the sensor is located in the center of the structure and immobilized for capturing any special biological targets. Due to in-plane vibration of the sensor, the viscous damping is low enough to achieve measurable quality factor by resonator. The total system is simulated by finite element methods and the results demonstrate that the appropriate vibration frequency for in-plane motion of the sensor is 16.5kHz. In addition, the quality factor and mass sensitivity are 49 and
100Hz/µg, respectively, which are comparable to sensors with similar fluidics applications.
 
 

Keywords

Main Subjects


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