Quartz crystal microbalance mass sensors

Quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) sensors that are coated with lecithin and activated carbon can be used to detect environmental pollutants with high recognition ability. The pollutants are detected from a measurable change in crystal oscillator frequency, which is caused by a small increase in mass deposited on... 

Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) sensors detect changes in mass adsorption at an interface and may represent an alternative sensor technology for the study of biospecific interactions in real-time [78], The operating principle of these sensors is based on changes of frequency in acoustic shear waves in the substrate of the sensor. When the QCM system is used in piezoelectric detection mode, the resulting frequency will shift in direct proportion to molecular mass adsorbed at the surface of the sensor [79]. 

Acoustic Wave Sensors. Another emerging physical transduction technique involves the use of acoustic waves to detect the accumulation of species in or on a chemically sensitive film. This technique originated with the use of quartz resonators excited into thickness-shear resonance to monitor vacuum deposition of metals (11). The device is operated in an oscillator configuration. Changes in resonant frequency are simply related to the areal mass density accumulated on the crystal face. These sensors, often referred to as quartz crystal microbalances (QCMs), have been coated with chemically sensitive films to produce gas and vapor detectors (12), and have been operated in solution as Hquid-phase microbalances (13). A dual QCM that has one smooth surface and one textured surface can be used to measure both the density and viscosity of many Hquids in real time (14). 

The quartz crystal microbalance has a long history of application as a means of determining film thickness in vacuum deposition techniques and more recently as a means of detecting trace constituents in the gas phase. In essence, it is an extremely sensitive sensor capable of measuring mass changes in the nanogram range. 

MOS metal oxide sensor, MOSFET metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor, IR infrared, CP conducting polymer, QMS quartz crystal microbalance, IMS ion mobility spectrometry, BAW bulk acoustic wave, MS mass spectrometry, SAW siuface acoustic wave, REMPI-TOFMS resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry... 

This is the correct name for most popular mass sensors, although they are better known as Quartz Crystal Microbalances (QCMs). A piezoelectric crystal vibrating in its resonance mode is a harmonic oscillator. For microgravimetric applications, it is necessary to develop quantitative relationships between the relative shift of the resonant frequency and the added mass. In the following derivation, the added mass is treated as added thickness of the oscillator, which makes the derivation more intuitively accessible. 

Although less common, some third-order chemical sensors have found significant applications not only in sensing but also in research. One such example is Electrochemical Quartz Crystal Microbalance (EQCM). With EQCM, an electrochemical experiment can be performed in its inherently large experimental space, that is, various electrochemical waveforms, impedance analysis, gating, and different mass loading. As the dimensionality of the experiment is increased, so is its information content. 

The addition of mass provides the means of transduction for many chemical sensors, including surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices, quartz crystal microbalances (QCM), and microcantilevers. In all these devices, the mass addition either perturbs the vibration, oscillations, or deflection within the transducer. The mode of transduction in an optical interferometer can also be linked to mass addition the sensor s response is altered by refractive index changes in the material being monitored. It is possible that this change can be elicited solely from refractive index changes without the addition of mass, although in sensing a particular... 

As the readers may see, quartz crystal resonator (QCR) sensors are out of the content of this chapter because their fundamentals are far from spectrometric aspects. These acoustic devices, especially applied in direct contact to an aqueous liquid, are commonly known as quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) [104] and used to convert a mass ora mass accumulation on the surface of the quartz crystal or, almost equivalent, the thickness or a thickness increase of a foreign layer on the crystal surface, into a frequency shift — a decrease in the ultrasonic frequency — then converted into an electrical signal. This unspecific response can be made selective, even specific, in the case of QCM immunosensors [105]. Despite non-gravimetric contributions have been attributed to the QCR response, such as the effect of single-film viscoelasticity [106], these contributions are also showed by a shift of the fixed US frequency applied to the resonator so, the spectrum of the system under study is never obtained and the methods developed with the help of these devices cannot be considered spectrometric. Recent studies on acoustic properties of living cells on the sub-second timescale have involved both a QCM and an impedance analyser thus susceptance and conductance spectra are obtained by the latter [107]. 

Most cascade impactors do not give data in real time. The collection surfaces must be removed from the device and subjected to chemical or gravimetric analysis. However, one impactor does give data in real time. The Model PC-2 Air Particle Analyzer (California Measurements, Inc., Sierra Madre, CA) achieves a real-time measurement by using piezoelectric quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) mass sensors to electronically weigh particles at each impactor stage [62,63], The device has 10 stages and separates the aerosol into... 

Compact chemical sensors can be broadly classified as being based on electronic or optical readout mechanisms [28]. The electronic sensor types would include resistive, capacitive, surface acoustic wave (SAW), electrochemical, and mass (e.g., quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and microelectromechanical systems (MEMSs)). Chemical specificity of most sensors relies critically on the materials designed either as part of the sensor readout itself (e.g., semiconducting metal oxides, nanoparticle films, or polymers in resistive sensors) or on a chemically sensitive coating (e.g., polymers used in MEMS, QCM, and SAW sensors). This review will focus on the mechanism of sensing in conductivity based chemical sensors that contain a semiconducting thin film of a phthalocyanine or metal phthalocyanine sensing layer. 

The quartz crystal microbalance device (QCM)21-24 allows one to measure the change of the mass of the films. This method is based on the ability of a piezoelectric quartz crystal to oscillate at a resonance frequency determined by the mass of the crystal. For these measurements, gold is evaporated directly onto the surface of such a quartz sensor which is then exposed to the vapour or solution of the adsorbate. What makes this method very valuable is that it can be used like SPR for monitoring molecular adsorption/desorption at the surfaces in situ. 

There has been remarkable progress in the development and application of the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) principle in sensitive devices for the detection and concentration measurement of specific molecules in gaseous and liquid media [1]. Since the behavior of quartz crystal resonator (QCR) sensors in gases is similar to quartz crystals technically used as frequency standards, a large set of circuit configurations is available, whose known properties can merely be adapted to particular applications [2-5]. In many cases quartz crystals used in electronic circuitry, sometimes even from mass production, are employed. 

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