Suspended microchannel resonators (SMRs) are an innovative approach to fluid-basedudmicroelectromechanical mass sensing that circumvents complete immersion of the sensor. Byudembedding the fluidics within the device itself, vacuum-based operation of the resonator becomesudpossible. This enables frequency shift-based mass detection with high quality factors, and henceudsensitivity comparable to vacuum-based micromechanical resonators. Here we present a detailedudanalysis of the sensitivity of these devices, including consideration of fundamental and practicaludnoise limits, and the important role of binding kinetics in sensing.We demonstrate that these devicesudshow significant promise for protein detection. For larger, biologically-important targets such as rareudwhole virions, the required analysis time to flow sufficient sample through the sensor can becomeudprohibitively long unless large parallel arrays of sensors or preconcentrators are employed.
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