Development of Novel Piezoelectric Biosensor Using PZT Ceramic Resonator for Detection of Cancer Markers

Abstract

A novel biosensor based on piezoelectric ceramic resonator was developed for direct detection of cancer markers in the study. For the first time, a commercially available PZT ceramic resonator with high resonance frequency was utilized as transducer for a piezoelectric biosensor. A dual ceramic resonators scheme was designed wherein two ceramic resonators were connected in parallel: one resonator was used as the sensing unit and the other as the control unit. This arrangement minimizes environmental influences including temperature fluctuation, while achieving the required frequency stability for biosensing applications. The detection of the cancer markers Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) and α-Fetoprotein (AFP) was carried out through frequency change measurement. The device showed high sensitivity (0.25 ng/ml) and fast detection (within 30 min) with small samples (1 μl), which is compatible with the requirements of clinical measurements. The results also showed that the ceramic resonator-based piezoelectric biosensor platform could be utilized with different chemical interfaces, and had the potential to be further developed into biosensor arrays with different specificities for simultaneous detection of multiple analytes.

Biosensing of Alpha-Fetoprotein: A Key Direction toward the Early Detection and Management of Hepatocellular Carcinoma

“…Su et al developed a mass piezo sensor to detect AFP [79]. The sensor utilized a commercially available lead zirconate titanate (PZT) ceramic resonator with a high resonance frequency as the transducer for a piezoelectric biosensor.…”

Fundamentals and commercial aspects of nanobiosensors in point-of-care clinical diagnostics

“…Thereafter, the reflected beam is detected by position sensitive photodetector to obtain the signal (Tamayo et al 2013). On the other hand, the probe cantilever coupled with piezoelectric crystal is used to generate the piezoelectricity for the response of the stimuli, and thereafter the motion-induced resistance of transducer is recorded for biosensing processes (Jun-Zheng et al 2017;Su et al 2017). The fundamental processes involved in mechanical biosensors are the change in mass, surface stress, young's modulus, and viscoelasticity after bio-molecular adsorption or coupling to the immobilized bioreceptor.…”

Obtaining, structure, microstructure and dielectric characteristics of ceramics and thin films of ferro-piezoelectric materials based on the PZT system

“…The latter is due to the wide range of parameters implemented in ceramics based on them that make it possible to use these structures in reception devices, vibration sources, resonators, filters, etc. [1][2][3][4][5][6] In the recent years, work on obtaining and studying the properties of these materials as thin-film has become increasingly relevant, since they can be widely used in modern micro-electromechanical systems [7][8][9][10][11] or nonvolatile memory elements. [12][13][14][15] Work on the creation of this type of structures has been carried out for more than 40 years at the Scientific Research Institute of Physics of the Southern Federal University.…”