Review of Micro cantilever sensors for detecting diseases: Fabrication Methodologies and sensing techniques

Abstract

Abstract Recently Lab on chip devices are widely used for detecting various diseases. Cantilever being used as commonly among variety of sensors used on such chips. This paper presents review of various fabrication methodology and analysis techniques used in sensing diseases using micro-cantilever sensors. The principal aim in detecting diseases using blood sample is to know concentration of antigens or bacteria in sample. This also provides stage of disease in the patient. Various techniques such as ELISA (Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay), Radio-Immuno Assay, X-ray are used for detecting the stages of disease. However, time required in these techniques is very large. To reduce the time in detection, simple micro cantilever Bio-sensor is used widely. For the purpose of detection, cantilevers are coated with antibody to attract the antigens from blood sample which is dropped on cantilever beam. Antigens that get adhered to the surface of cantilever thus develop a surface stress causes bending of cantilever. This redirection of the cantilever can be detected by various strategies and thus we can predict about the concentration of the antibodies in a particular blood sample. This paper exhaustively presents the fabrication methodology and disease detection technique using micro-cantilever.