[nanoPost] Nanomechanical cantilevers

Company Switzerland

Cantilever sensors are highly flexible and sensitive devices, allowing the detection of extremely small quantities of substances in gas and liquids. The mechanical effect of molecular interactions on the cantilever surface can be measured directly, eliminating the need for time consuming labeling.

The company develops and commercialises analytical instruments for the detection of molecules and measurement of molecular interactions. At the heart of their instruments are nanomechanical cantilever sensors allowing breakthrough analysis in areas such as medical diagnostics, drug discovery, surface chemistry and environmental monitoring.

Nanomechanical cantilevers are microfabricated silicon beams with a typical length of a few hundred micrometers and a width of 100 micrometers or less.

With their thickness of only one to ten micrometers, or 1/10th to 1/100th of a human hair, already a tiny force is able to bend the cantilever. Since deflections of less than 1 nm can be measured, cantilevers qualify as very small and extremely sensitive force and mass sensors.

By coating the surface with a chemical layer that selectively adsorbs or binds a given target substance, a cantilever can be converted into a highly sensitive and selective chemical or biochemical sensor.

When the cantilever comes in contact with the target substance, it reacts with a mechanical response: the cantilever bends due to surface stress and changes its resonance frequency due to the additional mass load. The tiny dimensions of the cantilever account for its extremely high sensitivity.