Novel microcantilever sensor using plasmonically enhanced nonlinearity

利用等离子体增强非线性的新型微悬臂梁传感器

• 批准号: 1809891
• 负责人: Goutam Koley
• 金额: $ 34.5万
• 依托单位: Clemson University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-06-15 至 2023-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1809891&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Novel; microcantilever; sensor; using; plasmonically

There is an ever increasing demand for microscale sensors with high sensitivity and selectivity due to their numerous applications spanning across industrial, civilian and military domains. Although rapid advancement in microscale sensor development, especially for chemical and biological sensing applications, has been achieved in the past decades, further enhancement in their sensitivity and selectivity is still very much desired for targeted applications. In this project, the principles of acoustic wave generation, using wavelength dependent pulsed light absorption in target materials, and detection, using a highly sensitive microcantilever, will be utilized to perform analyte sensing. Signal amplification using plasmonic effects, and non-linear region operation of the microcantilever, will be utilized to enhance the detection sensitivity by orders of magnitude compared to existing microscale sensors. Successful completion of the proposed research is anticipated to lead to the development of a novel and miniaturized sensor system with wide applicability in detecting a large variety of chemical and biological analytes. The sensors developed can have potentially transformative impacts on the state-of-the-art applications in a multitude of areas including defense, homeland security, environmental monitoring, public health drug discovery, disease diagnosis and prognosis. In addition to the scientific and societal impacts, the project is expected to have strong educational impacts as well. As a part of the educational and outreach activities, the PI would train graduate students, as well as involve undergraduate and high school students to work on this project, focusing particularly on recruitment from minority and underrepresented groups, by leveraging relevant existing programs at Clemson University. The project will also lead to enrichment of graduate courses, build strong international collaboration, and enable sharing of important scientific findings through journal articles, conference presentations, and relevant research websites.The overarching goal of the proposed research is to develop an ultrasensitive resonant microcantilever sensor using non-linear operation and plasmonic effects. This novel sensor will combine the advantages of photoacoustic detection, plasmonic signal enhancement, and non-linear region operation, utilizing a III-Nitride piezotransistor as the deflection transducer, to simultaneously offer very high sensitivity and selectivity in analyte detection. Piezotransistive GaN microcantilever, will be fabricated with integrated AlGaN/GaN HFET deflection transducer and plasmonic effects will be utilized to perform sensing, which can result in much higher deflection sensitivity based on their unique piezoelectric properties, compared to the Si based piezoresistive ones. The theoretical model to be developed as part of this project will also significantly enhance our understanding of non-linear cantilever excitation using plasmonically enhanced photoacoustic effects. If successful, the project can result in a paradigm shift in microcantilever based sensors leading to the development of a novel, high-performance and versatile sensor with much superior characteristics compared to the state-of-the-art sensing technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

由于它们跨越工业，平民和军事领域的众多应用，对微观传感器的需求越来越不断增加。尽管在过去的几十年中已经实现了微观传感器开发的快速发展，尤其是对于化学和生物传感应用，但对于目标应用来说，仍然非常需要增强其敏感性和选择性。在这个项目中，使用依赖于波长的脉冲光吸收在目标材料中的声波产生原理，并将使用高灵敏的微型管理器进行检测来执行分析物传感。与现有的显微镜传感器相比，使用等离子体效应以及微型磁盘的非线性区域操作的信号扩增将通过数量级来增强检测灵敏度。预计该研究的成功完成将导致开发一种新型和微型的传感器系统，该系统在检测各种化学和生物学分析物方面具有广泛的适用性。开发的传感器可能会对许多领域的最新应用产生潜在的变革影响，包括国防，国土安全，环境监测，公共卫生药物发现，疾病诊断和预后。除了科学和社会影响外，该项目还有望产生强大的教育影响。作为教育和外展活动的一部分，PI将培训研究生，并让本科生和高中生从事该项目，特别关注少数群体和代表性不足的团体的招聘，并利用克莱姆森大学的现有计划。该项目还将导致研究生课程的丰富，建立强大的国际合作，并通过期刊文章，会议演示文稿和相关研究网站来共享重要的科学发现。拟议的研究的总体目标是使用非线性操作和血浆效应开发超敏感的谐振微抗逆性传感器。该新型传感器将使用光声检测，等离激元信号增强和非线性区域操作的优势，利用III二硝基压晶体管作为偏转传感器，同时在分析物检测中提供了非常高的敏感性和选择性。与基于SI的Piezoresistive的Piezoresistive over相比，将使用集成的Algan/GAN HFET偏转传感器来制造压电运算GAN微型磁管，将用于执行感应性。作为该项目的一部分，要开发的理论模型还将显着增强我们使用血浆增强的光声效应对非线性悬臂激发的理解。如果成功的话，该项目可能会导致基于微锤的传感器的范式转移，从而导致与最先进的传感技术相比，具有更高特征的新颖，高性能和多功能传感器的发展。该奖项反映了NSF的法规使命，并认为通过基金会的知识优点和广泛的评论，它值得通过评估来进行评估。