Novel Magnetostrictive Microcantilever and Magnetostrictive Nanobars for High Performance Biological Detection

High performance biosensors are urgently needed from medical diagnosis, to food safety/security, to the war on bio-terrorist. Recently, magnetostrictive microcantilever (MSMC) and magnetostrictive particle (MSP) have been developed as high performance biosensor platform. Both MSMC and MSP are wireless sensors and exhibit advantages over current acoustic wave biosensor platforms. Theoretical analysis and experimental results indicate that micro/nano scale MSMC and MSP have ultra-high sensitivities. However, in real detection, there is a challenge faces all micro/nano scale sensors because of their small size. That is, a long time is required for the tiny sensors to react with the target species. Due to the magnetic and wireless nature, MSP provides a unique way to bring the nanosensors to target species. The fabrication of bar-like MSPs in nanoscale is reported. Amorphous Fe-B alloy was selected as target magnetostrictive materials for fabrication. The properties of these nanobars were determined. The morphology and magnetic properties of the nanobars were characterized. The results ware analyzed and the size effect on the microstructure and properties is discussed.