HIGH-Q NANOELECTROMECHANICAL RESONATOR FOR DYNAMIC BIOMOLECULAR INTERACTION MONITORING

Abstract

Nanoscale resonators can also be implemented as Nanoelectromechanical Systems (NEMS) that will offer a powerful label-free way to monitor biomolecular interactions in real time because resonance frequency, linewidth, phase, the Quality factor and dissipation will all change due to molecular binding, adsorptions, hydration and mechanical changes at interfaces. A review manuscript based on research is provided for NEMS Biomolecular Interaction Analysis Platform and contains resonant nanobeams, suspended microchannel resonators, film bulk acoustic resonators, hypersonic acoustic resonators and integrated photonic-mechanical NEMS. A thorough literature survey is presented starting from the basics and the more recent contributions to mass sensitivity, cross-compatibility in liquids, surface functionalization, noise, signal processing, kinetic interpretation of data and contributions. The conceptual NEMS platform features microfluidic closed-loop sample delivery along with a functionalized nanoresonator, and closed loop frequency tracking. The paper stresses the importance of not only high responsivity, but also on optimal designing of the surface chemistry, mass transport, thermal stabilization, damping control, readout precision, and data modelling on the analytical performance of NEMS. Nanobeam and cantilever NEMS are ideal for measuring the mass of a single particle or single protein in their respective applications, but suspended microchannel resonators are ideal for continuous liquid phase applications. Several architectures based on acoustics and photonic-mechanics, offering interesting properties for the diagnostics of multiplexed, transportation enhanced diagnostics systems and miniatur scale diagnostics systems. The manuscript concludes that NEMS biosensing is progressing from a proof-of-concept mass detection to systems-integration for continuous and kinetic protein and nucleic acid analysis, as well as vesicles, pathogens and cells.