Design and Implementation of a Cost Effective Quartz Crystal Microbalance System for Monitoring Small Changes on any Surface

Year 2019, Volume: 7 Issue: 3, 213 - 217, 30.07.2019

Sunay Türkdoğan

https://doi.org/10.17694/bajece.530796

Cited By: 1

Abstract

Quartz crystal microbalance systems are widely
used in different fields from biology to electronic. Those devices are very
sensitive to mass changes on the piezoelectric crystal surface in nano gram
scale and therefore can be used to detect even a single virus on surface of any
substance. Although they are very practical and versatile, they are sold with
very high prices and thus hindering the usage for someone with tight research
budget.  In this work, we try to find a
cost effective solution and bring this device into the price range on two to
three orders of magnitude lower than the commercial counterparts. For that
purpose, we develop a cost effective quartz crystal microbalance system using a
cost effective microcontroller and a typical oscillator circuit and the final
product can be used in different fields to detect the mass change on any
surface caused by different reactions or effects.

Keywords

Piezoelectric, QCM (Quartz Crystal Microbalance), Sensors, Transducers, Thickness/Gas Monitor

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