Abstract. Chemical sensors, based on highly mass sensitive QMB or SAW devices, coated with thin layers of calixarenes, enable the detection of organic solvent vapours, especially halogenated or aromatic hydrocarbons, down to a few ppm. Force field calculations allow the tailoring of these sensor materials seeing that the predicted interaction energies between the host molecules and a large variety of analytes are linearly correlated to the measured sensor effects. These correlations and also BET adsorption analysis prove the analyte recognition properties of these calixarene coatings to be mainly based on host/guest inclusion principles.Keywords: QMB-SAW-sensors, calixarenes, MM3 force field, BET.Functionalized calixarenes represent an important class of basic skeletons for the synthesis of lipophilic or polar host-systems for the inclusion of favored neutral molecules or ions in solid or liquid state systems [1,2]. The outstanding capacity of the calixarenes as receptors is mainly based on their variable chemical modification potential and their conformational pliability which enables a kind of induced fit on the shape of a suitable guest molecule [3]. Unlike the meanwhile immense number of examples for the detection of ions, there is still a lack of appropriate and powerful sensitive materials and optimized transducer devices for the development of chemical sensors for neutral compounds. The use of supramolecular principles by the application of macrocyclic, enzyme-like calixarenes as sensor coatings on the highly mass sensitive QMB or SAW [4] devices offer promising potentialities [5]. Calixarenes are easy to modify with respect to the shape and size of their cavity and afford a broad potential for development. Due to the fact that QMB and SAW devices are highly sensitive to mass changes of the sensor layer (in the range of 10-9 to 10-t4 g) the systems enable an universal applicability provided analyte molecules are incorporated into the calixarene coatings.