Mass Sensors Based on Piezoelectric Materials

Moreover, impedance analysis provides a powerful approach to the study of interfaces. Finally, mass sensors have high sensitivity, and can be used with a variety of selective layers for sensing of a very broad range of compounds. 

There are several types of materials that exhibit the piezoelectric effect. Because it is inexpensive, and because it has a relatively strong piezoelectric coefficient, quartz is the material of choice for most piezoelectric sensor applications. It has a hexagonal crystallographic structure, with no center of symmetry. Both the magnitude of the piezoelectric coefficient and the extent of its temperature dependence are affected by the orientation of the cut of the crystal with respect to the main crystallographic axes. The most popular AT-cut is shown in Fig. 4.2. 

For practical reasons, the optimum orientation is chosen such that the crystal has a minimum temperature dependence within the intended operating temperature range. Most applications use the AT-cut 35° 15 inclined in the yz-plane, which exhibits a minimum temperature coefficient between 50-70 °C (Janshoff et al., 2000). Yet at the ambient temperatures (25-45 °C) encountered in sensing 

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Mass Sensors Based on Piezoelectric Materials where... 

There are some excellent review articles on different aspects of mesostructured materials, such as synthesis, properties, and applications. " Extensive research effort has been devoted to the exploitation of new phases (lamellar, cubic, hexagonal structures), expansion of the pore sizes (about 2-50 nm are accessible), and variable framework compositions (from pure silica, through mixed metal oxides to purely metal oxide-based frameworks, and inorganic-organic hybrid mesostructures). Another research focus is on the formation of mesostructured materials in other morphologies than powders, e.g. monolithic materials and films, which are required for a variety of applications including, but not limited to, sensors (based on piezoelectric mass balances or surface acoustic wave devices), catalyst supports, (size- and shape-selective) filtration membranes or (opto)electronic devices. The current article is focused... 

A sensor that is especially interesting and instructive is made from a quartz crystal microbalance, or QCM. This device is based on the piezoelectric characteristics of quartz. When quartz is mechanically deformed, an electrical potential difference develops across its surface. Furthermore, when a voltage is impressed across the faces of a quartz crystal, the crystal deforms., A crystal connected in an appropriate electrical circuit oscillates at a frequency that is characteristic of the mass and shape of the crystal and that is amazingly constant as long as the mass of the crystal is constant. This property of some crystalline materials is called the piezoelectric effect and forms the basis for the QCM. Moreover, the characteristic constant frequency of the quartz crystal is the basis for modern high-precision clocks, time bases, counters, timers, and frequency meters, which in turn have led to many highly accurate and precise analyTical instrumental svsiems. 

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