Fabrication and characterization of novel polymer composite microcantilever sensors for explosive detection

Abstract

In this paper, we report the development of a SU-8 based novel polymer composite microcantilever sensor designed for surface stress measurements. Nanoindentation study was carried out for measuring the Young's modulus of the polymer composite. A low cost process, optimized for fabrication of composite SU8 microcantilevers with thickness as small as 3 ¿m is developed and characterized as part of this work. Further, this paper also demonstrates the application of this polymer composite cantilever for explosive detection with the appropriate surface coatings carried out on the polymer surface.