Surface Acoustic Wave Studies for Chemical and Biological Sensors

Surface Acoustic Waves on piezoelectric substrates are very sensitive to any external modulation of the mechanical and/or electrical boundary conditions at the surface on which they propagate. This makes them a perfect tool for sensor applications. In this manuscript, we demonstrate that a sophisticated transducer design allows for a spatial resolution of the interaction of SAW and local modulation of the electrical and mechanical boundary condition. If such local disturbances of parts of the functionalized sample surface are due to a chemical or optical interaction, a single chip with many different 'pixels' can act as a novel type of sensor.