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. 2009;9(7):5740-69.
doi: 10.3390/s90705740. Epub 2009 Jul 20.

Surface generated acoustic wave biosensors for the detection of pathogens: a review

María-Isabel Rocha-Gaso  1 , Carmen March-Iborra, Angel Montoya-Baides, Antonio Arnau-Vives
Affiliations

Surface generated acoustic wave biosensors for the detection of pathogens: a review

María-Isabel Rocha-Gaso et al. Sensors (Basel). 2009.

Abstract

This review presents a deep insight into the Surface Generated Acoustic Wave (SGAW) technology for biosensing applications, based on more than 40 years of technological and scientific developments. In the last 20 years, SGAWs have been attracting the attention of the biochemical scientific community, due to the fact that some of these devices - Shear Horizontal Surface Acoustic Wave (SH-SAW), Surface Transverse Wave (STW), Love Wave (LW), Flexural Plate Wave (FPW), Shear Horizontal Acoustic Plate Mode (SH-APM) and Layered Guided Acoustic Plate Mode (LG-APM) - have demonstrated a high sensitivity in the detection of biorelevant molecules in liquid media. In addition, complementary efforts to improve the sensing films have been done during these years. All these developments have been made with the aim of achieving, in a future, a highly sensitive, low cost, small size, multi-channel, portable, reliable and commercially established SGAW biosensor. A setup with these features could significantly contribute to future developments in the health, food and environmental industries. The second purpose of this work is to describe the state-of-the-art of SGAW biosensors for the detection of pathogens, being this topic an issue of extremely importance for the human health. Finally, the review discuses the commercial availability, trends and future challenges of the SGAW biosensors for such applications.

Keywords: Acoustic Plate Modes (APM); Love Wave; Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW); biosensors; pathogen agents.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
a) Structure of a SGAW sensor. b) IDT configuration for SGAW.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Interdigital Transducer (IDT) with period p, electrode width equal to space between electrodes and aperture A.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Frequency response of an IDT (positive frequencies).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
a) Two IDTs SGAW configuration. b) Two-port SGAW delay line oscillator. The SGAW device provides a feedback path for the amplifier. For a stable oscillation the signal must return to its starting point having equal amplitude and being shifted in phase by an integral multiple of 2π radians [31].
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Scheme of a two-port SGAW resonator.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Scheme of a one-port SGAW resonator.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Dual-channel delay line configuration [46].
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
(a) Oscillator circuit provides a single-frequency signal. (b)Vector voltmeter provides phase and amplitude. (c) Network analyzers are connected to one and two-port devices. M: matching network [29].
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
Feedback system for an oscillator.
Figure 10.
Figure 10.
Top view of particle displacements of plane acoustic waves propagating in a solid. (Top) longitudinal or compressional wave. (Bottom) shear or transverse wave. Black arrows indicate the wave propagation direction and red arrows indicate the particle displacement directions.
Figure 11.
Figure 11.
Y’-cuts of a quartz crystal (AT cut is 35°15′ rotated about the X- axis and BT cut is 49° rotated about the X- axis).
Figure 12.
Figure 12.
Scheme of a SH-SAW device.
Figure 13.
Figure 13.
Scheme of a STW device.
Figure 14.
Figure 14.
Wave propagation angles of Leaky, SSBW and STW waves.
Figure 15.
Figure 15.
Scheme of a LW device.
Figure 16.
Figure 16.
Structure of an SH-APM sensor.
Figure 17.
Figure 17.
Scheme of a FPW device.
Figure 18.
Figure 18.
Pictorial representation of Lamb wave modes: (left) antysimmetric mode and (right) symmetric mode. Typical wave speeds, Vp, are shown below each sketch.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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