Journal
ACS SENSORS
Volume 2, Issue 4, Pages 540-546Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.6b00831
Keywords
gold nanoparticle; freestanding; membrane; MEMS; NEMS; sensor; resonator
Funding
- scholarship of the Joachim Herz Stiftung
- DFG [VO698/3-1]
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We report a novel approach for the detection of volatile compounds employing electrostatically driven drumhead resonators as sensing elements. The resonators are based on freestanding membranes of alkanedithiol cross-linked gold nanoparticles (GNPs), which are able to sorb analytes from the gas phase. Under reduced pressure, the fundamental resonance frequency of a resonator is continuously monitored while the device is exposed to varying partial pressures of toluene, 4-methylpentan-2-one, 1-propanol, and water. The measurements reveal a strong, reversible frequency shift of up to similar to 10 kHz, i.e., similar to 5% of the fundamental resonance frequency, when exposing the sensor to toluene vapor with a partial pressure of similar to 20 Pa. As this strong shift cannot be explained exclusively by the mass uptake in the membrane, our results suggest a significant impact of analyte sorption on the pre-stress of the freestanding GNP membrane. Thus, our findings point to the possibility of designing highly sensitive resonators, which utilize sorption induced changes in the membranes pre-stress as primary transduction mechanism.
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