Love wave-based acoustic components as versatile sensors for electronic nose or tongue. Application to cancer monitoring

Surface Acoustic Wave or SAW-based devices are spreadly studied for highly sensitive and real-time chemical or biochemical sensing applications. In particular, Love waves or shear horizontal waves guided in a thin surface film, are of particular interest for liquid samples. In this work, we present a basic structure and introduce its versatility through a large spectrum of applications investigated in IMS labs. Then we focus on a device dedicated to the detection of nucleosides as cancer biomarkers for the monitoring of therapy. In this case, thin films of Molecularly Imprinted Polymers (MIPs) are used as sensitive matrix for the detection of adenosine-5-monophosphate (5´-AMP) and Pseudouridine (pseu) in liquid medium. The acoustic delay-line is associated to a microfluidic chip and inserted in an oscillation loop. The real-time resonance frequency of the MIP-based device to various concentrations of 5´-AMP and pseu has been investigated. Detection limit as low as 5 ppm of 5´-AMP has been achieved.