Near-surface viscosity measurements with a love acoustic wave device

Full text: In the last decade, considerable research effort has been directed towards interfacing piezoelectric transducers with biological detection systems to produce efficient and highly selective biosensors. Several types of piezoelectric or, more specifically, acoustic wave transducers have been investigated. Our group has developed Love wave (guided surface skimming wave) devices which are made by attaching a thin overlayer with the appropriate acoustic properties to the surface of a conventional surface horizontal mode device. An optimised layer concentrates most of the propagating wave energy in the guiding layer and can improve the device sensitivity in detecting gas-phase mass loading on the surface some 20- to 40-fold. Love wave devices used in liquid phase sensing will also respond to viscous, as well as mass, loading on the device surface. We have studied the propagation of viscous waves into liquid sitting on a Love wave device both theoretically and experimentally. Modelling of the effect of a viscous liquid layer on a Love wave propagating in a layered medium predicts the velocity profile in the solid substrate and in the adjoining liquid. This is a function of the thickness of the guiding layer, the elastic properties of the guiding layer and the piezoelectric substrate, and of the viscosity and density of the liquid layer. We report here on measurements of the viscosity of aqueous glycerine solutions made with a quartz Love wave device with a 5.5 μm SiO2 guiding layer. The linear relationship between the decrease in the device frequency and the square root of the viscosity density product is accurately observed at Newtonian viscosities. At higher viscosities, there is an increase in damping, the insertion loss of the device saturates, Δf is no longer proportional to (ηp)l/2 and reaches a maximum. We also show results for the determination of the gelation time in protein and inorganic aqueous gels and for the rate of change of viscosity with time due to the molecular ordering in the liquid which precedes gelation