Mesoporous titania-coated Love wave sensors and FEM model applied to viscosity micro-measurements

This paper presents the interest of a Love wave sensor coated with a TiO2 mesoporous film as sensitive layer. The main novelty is related to the modelling of the device and simulation by using Finite Element Method with COMSOL Multiphysics software, which is a good way to take into account the physical properties of porous 3D-layers. Experimental devices have shown a good agreement with simulated results. Furthermore, experimental results with several Newtonian liquids, viscosities from 1 to 7 cP, are investigated. The sensitivity with a 300 nm thick porous sensing layer was 30 times that of the bare device, with interesting dynamical issues to be further studied, giving rise to the great potentialities of such architectures for microrheological measurements.