Surface Generated Acoustic Wave Biosensors for the Detection of Pathogens: A Review

Abstract

This review presents a deep insight into the Surface Generated Acoustic Wave (SGAW) technology for biosensing applications, based on more than 40 years of technological and scientific developments. In the last 20 years, SGAWs have been attracting the attention of the biochemical scientific community, due to the fact that some of these devices - Shear Horizontal Surface Acoustic Wave (SH-SAW), Surface Transverse Wave (STW), Love Wave (LW), Flexural Plate Wave (FPW), Shear Horizontal Acoustic Plate Mode (SH-APM) and Layered Guided Acoustic Plate Mode (LG-APM) - have demonstrated a high sensitivity in the detection of biorelevant molecules in liquid media. In addition, complementary efforts to improve the sensing films have been done during these years. All these developments have been made with the aim of achieving, in a future, a highly sensitive, low cost, small size, multi-channel, portable, reliable and commercially established SGAW biosensor. A setup with these features could significantly contribute to future developments in the health, food and environmental industries. The second purpose of this work is to describe the state-of-the-art of SGAW biosensors for the detection of pathogens, being this topic an issue of extremely importance for the human health. Finally, the review discuses the commercial availability, trends and future challenges of the SGAW biosensors for such applications.

Micro- and nano-structure based oligonucleotide sensors

“…As the acoustic energy within SAW devices is confined to the surface they are highly sensitive to any changes in mass that might occur at the surface, such as the binding of analyte molecules to a recognition layer (Gronewold, 2007;Länge, et al, 2008;Voiculescu and Nordin, 2012). Variations of SAW devices include Shear-Horizontal Surface Acoustic Wave (SH-SAW), Surface Transverse Wave (STW) and Love Wave (LW) devices (Rocha-Gaso et al, 2009).…”

“…Delay-line sensors function by detecting changes to the time taken for the waves to traverse the sensing region and the amplitude of the received waves, caused by analyte molecules binding to the sensing region (Rocha-Gaso et al, 2009;Voiculescu and Nordin, 2012). In resonator devices a single set of IDEs are situated centrally between reflectors such that standing waves are created within an area encompassing the sensing region (Fig.…”

“…The reflectors typically consist of gratings of weakly reflecting components such as thin strips of metal, dielectric or grooves etched into the piezoelectric substrate (Bell and Li, 1976). Resonator devices function by detecting changes in the resonant frequency that result when analyte molecules bind to the sensing region (Rocha-Gaso et al, 2009;Voiculescu and Nordin, 2012).…”

A fully microfabricated carbon nanotube three-electrode system on glass substrate for miniaturized electrochemical biosensors

“…Over the last decade, numerous miniaturized biosensors employing various transduction principles for different applications have been developed (Mehrvar and Abdi 2004;Alvarez and Lechuga 2010;Rocha-Gaso et al 2009). The main advantages of miniaturized sensors include mass production, good reproducibility, easier storage and distribution, and the possibility of fabricating multi-analyte biosensors.…”

Development of a Modular Biosensor System for Rapid Pathogen Detection

“…The potential of the proposed system lies within the combination of biology and engineering as the development of biosensors is highly interdisciplinary [7]. Five key components, namely, biomolecular detection (I) with intracellular signal amplification (II) embedded into a twodimensional sensor chip (III), a custom incubation device (IV), and automated image analysis (V), constitute the functional biosensor as displayed in Figure 1.…”