A Fluidic Interface with High Flow Uniformity for Reusable Large Area Resonant Biosensors

Resonant biosensors are known for their high accuracy and high level of miniaturization. However, their fabrication costs prevent them from being used as disposable sensors and their effective commercial success will depend on their ability to be reused repeatedly. Accordingly, all the parts of the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Charles-Louis Azzopardi, Vivien Lacour, Jean-François Manceau, Magali Barthès, Dimitri Bonnet, Franck Chollet, Thérèse Leblois
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2017-10-01
Series:Micromachines
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2072-666X/8/10/308
Description
Summary:Resonant biosensors are known for their high accuracy and high level of miniaturization. However, their fabrication costs prevent them from being used as disposable sensors and their effective commercial success will depend on their ability to be reused repeatedly. Accordingly, all the parts of the sensor in contact with the fluid need to tolerate the regenerative process which uses different chemicals (H3PO4, H2SO4 based baths) without degrading the characteristics of the sensor. In this paper, we propose a fluidic interface that can meet these requirements, and control the liquid flow uniformity at the surface of the vibrating area. We study different inlet and outlet channel configurations, estimating their performance using numerical simulations based on finite element method (FEM). The interfaces were fabricated using wet chemical etching on Si, which has all the desirable characteristics for a reusable biosensor circuit. Using a glass cover, we could observe the circulation of liquid near the active surface, and by using micro-particle image velocimetry (μPIV) on large surface area we could verify experimentally the effectiveness of the different designs and compare with simulation results.
ISSN:2072-666X