Functionalized mesoporous thin-film directly self-assembled on resonant-cantilevers for batch-producible chemical sensors

The paper reports a top-down/bottom-up combined resonant micro-cantilever chemical sensor, where functionalized mesoporous thin-film (MTF) is directly self-assembled on the sensing region of the integrated cantilever. By using the batch-producible nano construction technique, a large number of such sensors can be volume fabricated with uniform performance among individual sensors or different runs. More importantly, sensing groups can be simultaneously constructed at the pore inner surface when the MTF is directly constructed on the cantilever. With -NH₂ groups modified, the functionalized MTF is grown onto the surface of the cantilever free-end, the micro-gravimetric sensor exhibits quick response and high-sensitive detection to gaseous CO₂.