Magnetic Acoustic Resonator Sensor (MARS)

Abstract

This section presents a novel technique that could be considered as the next generation of quartz crystal microbalance. The magnetic acoustic resonator sensor (MARS), uses a planar spiral coil to vibrate a single quartz crystal from 6 MHz to 1.1 GHz to obtain multifrequency acoustic spectra. The use of a noncontacting coil, instead of electrodes, allows the selection of harmonics at various frequencies, which in turn allows the control of the evanescent field at the sensor surface, so the biophysical properties of the solid–liquid interface can be investigated in greater detail.