Immunosensors Based on Piezoelectric Crystal Device

New recent developments in engineering have improved transducer piezoelectric technology and have led to a new generation of sensor devices, the piezoelectric microbalances, based on planar microfabrication technique. These devices show a very high sensitivity (up to femtomole) for detecting molecules that are linked to the surface of the device and change its resonant frequency. A sensor surface can be coated selectively for interaction with a specific chemical or class of chemical or a biomolecule to be detected. Applications in medicine, environmental monitoring, food analysis, and process control are possible. Most of the applications employ bulk acoustic waves (BAW) devices, using a selective coating for the analyte of interest.