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Updated: May 28, 2026
Microtensiometer for Confocal Microscopy Visualization of Dynamic Interfaces
Published on: September 9, 2022
Adsorption induced surface-stress sensing signal originating from both vertical interface effects and intermolecular
Tiantian Yang1, Xinxin Li, Ying Chen
1State Key Lab of Transducer Technology, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, PR China.
Abstract:
This research investigates the origin of specific molecule-adsorption induced surface-stress for micro/nano-cantilever bio/chemical sensors. Systematic discussion is presented on the contribution from types of molecule interactions to the generated surface-stress sensing signal. With the main arguments verified by our micro-cantilever sensing experiments, the origin of the adsorption induced surface-stress is, for the first time, clearly categorized into interface vertical effects and lateral interactions, which helps to comprehensively understand the surface-stress generation and overall to optimize the sensing performance of micro-cantilever chemo-mechanical sensors. The key findings of this research are that, vertically at the molecule adsorption surface, interfacial energy change and charge redistribution are the main origins of the generated surface-stress. More importantly, intermolecular lateral interactions may make a more significant contribution to the nano-mechanical surface-stress response. Compared with other lateral interactions like van der Waals force and the electrostatic coulombic effect, intermolecular hydrogen-bond intensity and steric factor easily cause much greater disparity in surface-stress.
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