High sensitivity acoustic wave AlN/Si mass detectors arrays for artificial olfactory and biosensing applications: A review

Film bulk acoustic wave resonators (FBAR) have recently been adopted as alternative to surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators in the high frequency range, due to their inherent advantages, such as low insertion loss, high power handling capability and small size. FBAR can also be one of the standard devices for mass sensing applications. In this study, a highly sensitive mass sensor based on AlN/Si FBAR was designed and fabricated using two original technological processes: the “Venezia” silicon membrane and the silicon back etch poly-silicon membrane. The fabricated FBAR sensor exhibits a resonant frequency of 0.64 GHz and a mass sensitivity as high as 300–400 Hz/pg. Moreover in this paper the potentiality of FBAR for artificial olfactory and bio-sensing application as DNA hybridization electronic detection and immunoassay are discussed and we will show that, in this field original solutions can be carry out only using high sensitivity FBAR silicon resonators.