An electrothermal piezoresistive cantilever (EPC) sensor is a low-cost MEMS resonance sensor that provides self-actuating and self-sensing capabilities. In the platform, which is of MEMS-cantilever shape, the EPC sensor offers several advantages in terms of physical, chemical, and biological sensing, e.g., high sensitivity, low cost, simple procedure, and quick response. However, a crosstalk effect is generated by the coupling of parasitic elements from the actuation part to the sensing part. This study presents a parasitic feedthrough subtraction (PFS) method to mitigate a crosstalk effect in an electrothermal piezoresistive cantilever (EPC) resonance sensor. The PFS method is employed to identify a resonance phase that is, furthermore, deployed to a phase-locked loop (PLL)-based system to track and lock the resonance frequency of the EPC sensor under cigarette smoke exposure. The performance of the EPC sensor is further evaluated and compared to an AFM-microcantilever sensor and a commercial particle counter (DC1100-PRO). The particle mass-concentration measurement result generated from cigarette-smoke puffs shows a good agreement between these three detectors.
Keywords: cigarette smoke exposure; electrothermal piezoresistive cantilever sensors; parasitic feedthrough subtraction; particle mass concentration measurement.