Cantilever sensors have been the subject of growing attention in the last decades and their use as mass detectors proved with attogram sensitivity. The rush towards the detection of mass of few molecules pushed the development of more sensitive devices, which have been pursued mainly through downscaling of the cantilever-based devices. In the field of mass sensing, the performance of microcantilever sensors could be increased by using an array of mechanically coupled micro cantilevers of identical size.
In this thesis, we propose three mechanically coupled identical cantilevers, having three localized frequency modes with well-defined symmetry. We measure the oscillation amplitudes of all three cantilevers. We use finite element analysis to investigate the coupling effect on the performance of the system, in particular its mass response. We fabricated prototype micron-sized devices, showing that the mass sensitivity of a triple coupled cantilever (TCC) system is comparable to that of a single resonator. Coupled cantilevers offer several advantages over single cantilevers, including less stringent vacuum requirements for operation, mass localization, insensitivity to surface stress and to distributed a-specific adsorption. We measure the known masses of silica beads of 1µm and 4µm in diameter using TCC. As it is difficult to obtain one single bead at the free end of the cantilevers, we choose to use the Focused Ion Beam. By sequential removing mass from one cantilever in precise sequence, we proved that TCC is also unaffected from a-specific adsorption as is, on the contrary, the case of single resonator.
Finally, we proposed shown the use of TCC can be as micromechanical transistor device. We implemented an actuation strategy based on dielectric gradient force which enabled a separate actuation and control of oscillation amplitude, thus realizing a gating effect suitable to be applied for logic operation.
