Development of a biosensor based on laser-fabricated polymer microcantilevers

We develop high-sensitivity biosensors based on microcantilevers. The polymer microcantilevers are fabricated by fast and cost-effective laser machining processes. Polymer film is selected because it gives better sensitivity of deflection measurements than silicon due to its lower Young's modulus and also its cost is much lower. We demonstrate using these polymer microcantilevers for biological molecular analysis in a DNA hybridization experiment. It is shown that our biosensor is capable of detecting 12 base oligonucleotide with concentrations as low as 0.01 muM. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.