High precision polymer deposition onto microcantilever sensors using electrohydrodynamic printing

The ability to deposit functional organic layers with micrometer-scale resolution and precision is critical to the sensitivity and performance of chemical or biological sensors based on microcantilevers. This paper reports the use of electrohydrodynamic jetting to deposit micrometer sized droplets of pure polymer. The polymer droplets were deposited onto microcantilever sensors, with control over droplet size, location, and spacing. Cantilever-based gravimetry analyzed the polymer droplets by examining the shift in microcantilever resonance frequency resulting from droplet deposition. The resonance shift of 150-4130 Hz corresponded to a polymer mass of 4.5-135 pg. The electrohydrodynamic method is a precise way to deposit multiple materials onto micromechanical sensors with greater resolution than current methods.