Development of a Flow Injection Based High Frequency Dual Channel Quartz Crystal Microbalance

Abstract

When the quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) is used in liquid for adsorption or desorption monitoring based bio- or chemical sensing applications, the frequency shift is not only determined by the surface mass change, but also by the change of liquid characteristics, such as density and viscosity, which are greatly affected by the liquid environmental temperature. A monolithic dual-channel QCM is designed and fabricated by arranging two QCM resonators on one single chip for cancelling the fluctuation induced by environmental factors. In actual applications, one QCM works as a specific sensor by modifying with functional membranes and the other acts as a reference, only measuring the liquid property. The dual-channel QCM is designed with an inverted-mesa structure, aiming to realize a high frequency miniaturized chip and suppress the frequency interference between the neighbored QCM resonators. The key problem of dual-channel QCMs is the interference between two channels, which is influenced by the distance of adjacent resonators. The diameter of the reference electrode has been designed into several values in order to find the optimal parameter. Experimental results demonstrated that the two QCMs could vibrate individually and the output frequency stability and drift can be greatly improved with the aid of the reference QCM.

Design of Low Noise Micro Liter Syringe Pump for Quartz Crystal Microbalance Sensor

“…This result was similar to the other works about resonance frequency effect of syringe pump [9], and a relationship between gas pressure and a frequency sensor [12]. The stability of the sensor resonance in contact with liquid is better compared to work done with a 35MHz QCM sensor [13] and comparable with the work done using 9MHz QCM sensor [14].…”

Study on Dual Channel Lateral Field Excitation Quartz Crystal Microbalance for Measuring Liquid Electrical Properties

“…An impedance analyzer 4294A (Agilent Technologies Inc., Santa Clara, CA, USA) was used to measure the vibration properties including resonance frequency, Q value, conductance, and equivalent circuit parameters. A high frequency dual-channel oscillator system was developed as introduced before [ 22 ]. The flow injection system consisted mainly of a syringe pump, a loop, an injector, a flow cell, and a measuring instrument.…”

“…Small mechanical properties and environmental fluctuations result in large frequency drifts, and thereby inaccurate measurements. In theory, the impact of environmental factors can be eliminated by arranging another QCM as a reference [ 22 ]. Both Winters et al [ 23 ] and Abe et al [ 24 ] designed two or more independent QCMs on the same quartz blank, etching a quartz groove between two QCM bays.…”

Effects of ion source etching on the impedance performances of quartz component

“…The arti cial plasma is created by providing energy to free electrons in a gas, resulting in ionization and plasma formation in the reactor chamber, with different regions having distinct characteristics and properties [9][10][11][12]. The frequency of quartz components is adjusted by controlling the thickness of the quartz crystal thin lm, which, in turn, changes the oscillation frequency.…”