High Frequency QCM Flow Cell with Enhanced Accuracy for Liquid and Biochemical Sensing

Abstract

Most biosensing systems based on thickness shear mode resonators work with resonance frequencies between 5 and 20 MHz. The utilisation of high frequency fundamental (HFF) quartz resonators could further improve the sensitivity of such systems. We designed an acoustic biosensor flow cell for HFF quartz resonators. For the development of a biosensor we solved important questions like the functionalization of the small and fragile sensor surface, the sensitive and repeatable detection of dissolved analytes and the regeneration of the sensor. The system performance is evaluated by a number of experiments including the stepwise growth of a protein multilayer system. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.