MEMS Resonant Beam with Outstanding Uniformity of Sensitivity and Temperature Distribution for Accurate Gas Sensing and On-Chip TGA

Zheng Lu; Hao Jia; Ding Wang; Haitao Yu

doi:10.3390/s24082495

MEMS Resonant Beam with Outstanding Uniformity of Sensitivity and Temperature Distribution for Accurate Gas Sensing and On-Chip TGA

Sensors (Basel). 2024 Apr 13;24(8):2495. doi: 10.3390/s24082495.

Authors

Zheng Lu¹, Hao Jia², Ding Wang¹, Haitao Yu²

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials and Chemistry, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai 200093, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Transducer Technology, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai 200050, China.

Abstract

Micromechanical resonators have aroused growing interest as biological and chemical sensors, and microcantilever beams are the main research focus. Recently, a resonant microcantilever with an integrated heater has been applied in on-chip thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). However, there is a strong relationship between the mass sensitivity of a resonant microcantilever and the location of adsorbed masses. Different sampling positions will cause sensitivity differences, which will result in an inaccurate calculation of mass change. Herein, an integrated H-shaped resonant beam with uniform mass sensitivity and temperature distribution is proposed and developed to improve the accuracy of bio/chemical sensing and TGA applications. Experiments verified that the presented resonant beam possesses much better uniformity of sensitivity and temperature distribution compared with resonant microcantilevers. Gas-sensing and TGA experiments utilizing the integrated resonant beam were also carried out and exhibited good measurement accuracy.

Keywords: TGA; gas sensing; microcantilever; resonant beam; resonator; uniformity.

Grants and funding

The authors greatly appreciate the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62071300, 22176127, and 22301181), the Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (21ZR1444200 and YDZX20213100003002), and Shanghai Sailing Program (23YF1429000 and 22YF1430400).