Development of a Bridge-Microcantilever by CMOS Process for Surface Stress Measurement

Microcantilever based biosensor have been the recent research interests for its versatility in data acquisition and interpretation. A microcantilever can measure the surface stress generated on any specific functional layer coating on a biochemical sensor. Berger et al. [1] showed the surface stress change by the alkanethiols on a probe. Fritz et al. [2] measured the DNA hybridization and receptor-ligand binding by a microcantilever. The surface stress measurement in the above works is mainly by measuring the microcantilever deflection based on the optical lever technique in scanning probe microscopy; however, alignment and calibration of the optical element for different testing species are by no means trivial. The technique may be futile when operating in non-transparent liquid.