Novel microcantilever design for versatile mass sensor application.

This study presents a new microcantilever design for versatile mass sensor application. The novel comb-type cantilever provides a sensitive microcantilever structure for normal sensor application, and its sensing responses are compared with those of a commercial cantilever. While the comb-type cantilever has a similar total surface area to the commercial cantilever, there is a distinct difference in the design of the regional surface area. The results for a static charge interaction, used to compare the sensitivity of normal sensor applications, show a significant resonant frequency change for the comb-type cantilever when compared with that for the commercial cantilever, indicating the importance of the large surface area in the highly sensitive cantilever region. Thus, a schematic structure of a microcantilever for fabricating a highly sensitive mass sensor is proposed.