SAW chemical sensor arrays using new thin-film materials

We have used two classes of materials, self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) and plasma-grafted films (PGFs), as new chemically sensitive layers for an array of 97-MHz surface acoustic wave (SAW) delay-line-based devices. Responses of these materials to each of 14 different analytes, representing the classes of saturated alkane, aromatic hydrocarbon, chlorinated hydrocarbon, alcohol, ketone, organophosphonate, and water, have been evaluated using our six-SAW device array. Results reveal a qualitative ``chemical orthogonality`` of the films that is very promising for pattern recognition analysis.