Micro- and nanomechanical resonators are widely being used as mass sensors due to their unprecedented mass sensitivity. We present a simple closed-form expression which allows a fast and quantitative calculation of the position and mass of individual particles placed on a micro or nano string by measuring the resonant frequency shifts ofthe first two bending modes. The method has been tested by detecting the mass spectrum of micro particles placed on a micro string. This method enables real-time mass spectrometry necessary for applications such as personal monitoring devices for the assessment of theexposure dose of airborne nanoparticles. Full article

Here, we present the activities within our research group over the last five yearswith cantilevers fabricated in the polymer SU-8. We believe that SU-8 is an interestingpolymer for fabrication of cantilevers for bio/chemical sensing due to its simple processingand low Young’s modulus. We show examples of different integrated read-out methodsand their characterisation. We also show that SU-8 cantilevers have a reduced sensitivity tochanges in the environmental temperature and pH of the buffer solution. Moreover, weshow that the SU-8 cantilever surface can be functionalised directly with receptormolecules for analyte detection, thereby avoiding gold-thiol chemistry. Full article