Surface transverse wave sensor

A new chemical sensor based on surface transverse device has been developed (99) (see Sensors). It resembles a surface acoustic wave sensor with the addition of a metal grating between the tranducer and a different crystal orientation. This sensor operates at 250 mH2 and is ideally suited to measurements of surface-attached mass under fluid immersion. By immohi1i2ing atra2ine to the surface of the sensor device, the detection of atra2ine in the range of 0.06 ppb to 10 ppm was demonstrated. 

To model this, Duncan-Hewitt and Thompson [50] developed a four-layer model for a transverse-shear mode acoustic wave sensor with one face immersed in a liquid, comprised of a solid substrate (quartz/electrode) layer, an ordered surface-adjacent layer, a thin transition layer, and the bulk liquid layer. The ordered surface-adjacent layer was assumed to be more structured than the bulk, with a greater density and viscosity. For the transition layer, based on an expansion of the analysis of Tolstoi [3] and then Blake [12], the authors developed a model based on the nucleation of vacancies in the layer caused by shear stress in the liquid. The aim of this work was to explore the concept of graded surface and liquid properties, as well as their effect on observable boundary conditions. They calculated the hrst-order rate of deformation, as the product of the rate constant of densities and the concentration of vacancies in the liquid. 

Slip is not always a purely dissipative process, and some energy can be stored at the solid-liquid interface. In the case that storage and dissipation at the interface are independent processes, a two-parameter slip model can be used. This can occur for a surface oscillating in the shear direction. Such a situation involves bulk-mode acoustic wave devices operating in liquid, which is where our interest in hydrodynamic couphng effects stems from. This type of sensor, an example of which is the transverse-shear mode acoustic wave device, the oft-quoted quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), measures changes in acoustic properties, such as resonant frequency and dissipation, in response to perturbations at the surface-liquid interface of the device. 

In this device, a thin film or periodic grating on the surface of the crystal slows the wave and prevents radiation of energy into the interior of the crystal [84]. With proper choice of crystal orientation, a purely transverse particle motion at the surface can be obtained, permitting the sensor to operate successfully in liquids. 

In order for both mass and heat-flow sensors to operate, the thin-film sample must adhere to the top surface of the QCM and be of uniform thickness. The mechanical behaviour of films on the quartz microbalance has been modeled by Kanazawa(12), who examined the amplitude of the shear displacement in the quartz crystal and in the overlying film for several cases. For a 1 volt peak RF applied voltage typical of the Stanford Research Systems oscillator driver, the amplitude of the shear wave of a bare crystal is 132 nm. Mecca [29] has calculated the inertial acceleration at the centre of a similar quartz resonator, and finds that it is roughly 10 g, where g is the gravitational constant. At these extremely high accelerations, powder or polycrystalline samples do not follow the transverse motion of the QCM surface and cannot be used without being physically bound to the surface with a thin adhesive layer. 

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