Optical fiber array based simultaneous parallel monitoring of resonant cantilever sensors in liquid

Abstract

This paper reports a novel method for simultaneous resonance monitoring of MEMS cantilevers using phase based dynamic measurements without any electrical connections to the sensor array. MEMS cantilevers are made of electroplated nickel and actuated remotely with magnetic field using an electro-coil. To our knowledge this is the first demonstration of simultaneous parallel optical monitoring of dynamic mode micro-cantilever array in liquid environment. Illumination is generated using a laser source and a diffractive pattern generator, which provides 500 mu W laser power per channel. A compact fiber array based pick-up was built for optical readout. Its main advantages are easy customization to different size and pitch of sensor array, and good immunity to electrical noise and magnetic interference as the photo detectors are located away from the electro-coil. The resonant frequency of the cantilever is tracked with a custom multi-channel lock-in amplifier implemented in software. For demonstrating the stability and sensitivity of the system we performed measurements using glycerol solutions with different viscosities. Measured phase sensitivity was 0.9/1% of Glycerol/DI-water solution and the standard deviation of measured phase was 0.025 degrees. The resulting detection limit for Glycerol/DI-water solution was 280 ppm. The proposed method showed robust results with low laser power and very good noise immunity to interference signals and environmental vibrations. The sensor technology demonstrated here is very significant as it is scalable to larger arrays for simultaneous and real-time monitoring of multiple biological and chemical agents during fluid flow.