2010 R&D 100 Winner
Sensitive chemical and biological detection technologies are primarily based on either an adaptation of existing laboratory instruments or on miniature transducers that detect the presence of chemicals based on their mass or optical density.
Instrumentation is powerful, but expensive. Transducers are much simpler and cheaper, but have traditionally been confined to detection limits above a picogram. With Ultrasensitive Nanomechanical Transducers Based on Nonlinear Resonance, the development team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tenn., has taken transducers into the femtogram range.
The operating principle, executed by linear nanomechanical resonators, is based on mass or force loading of mechanical resonators driven into nonlinear oscillations with large amplitudes. The sensing part of the implemented transducers is an on-chip array of microcantilever beams excited into a highly nonlinear resonance by mounting them on a miniature piezoelectric element. Silicon nitride and silicon oxide, used as resonator structural materials, provide high optical reflectivity, mechanical robustness, and controllable intrinsic stress.
The robust architecture results in sensitivity at least 1,000 times better than comparable mass-sensitive transducers in the market.
Technology
Nanomechanical transducer
Developer
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Development Team
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| Panos Datskos and Nickolay Lavrik |
The Ultrasensitive Nanomechanical Transducers Based on Nonlinear Resonance Development Team:
Panos Datskos
Nickolay Lavrik
