Flexural plate wave devices for biosensor platform

Abstract

Flexural plate wave (FPW) device is one of promising devices for biological sensor application, because its electronic circuit can be isolated from the medium being detected, and it shows low acoustic energy loss in liquid medium. Moreover, FPW device arrays on the silicon based substrate can be possible at low cost fabrication by micromachining technology, so that it offers batch processing for economic sensor fabrication. In this study, piezoelectric ZnO film was chosen as a material for a biological sensor platform, due to non-toxicity, and chemical and thermal stability. RF magnetron sputtering and chemical solution deposition (CSD) were investigated as film fabrication method. To launch and receive the acoustic wave through the piezoelectric material, it is required that the piezoelectric ZnO film have strong c-axis orientation in the device. For the magnetron RF sputtering, process parameters such as gas ratio, substrate types, and temperature, were varied, and heat treatment and substrate types for CSD. Results indicated that the preferred orientation and microstructure of ZnO films can be controlled by the variation of the process parameter, and that uniform and dense microstructures of ZnO films were obtained by both fabrication methods. CSD method showed, however, stronger dependence of the preferred orientation on substrate types while less dependence on the substrates for sputtering due to energetic sputtered species. Mechanism for ZnO thin film growth will be discussed. FPW devices have been successfully integrated onto 4 inch Si-wafer with 22 different interdigitated electrodes designs, and the device demonstrated the capability to detect biological quantity of 446.13 cm²/gram of sensitivity.