Design and fabrication of a flexible MEMS-based electro-mechanical sensor array for breast cancer diagnosis

Abstract

The use of flexible micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS)-based devices provides a unique opportunity in bio-medical robotics such as the characterization of normal and malignant tissues. This paper reports on the design and development of a flexible MEMS-based sensor array integrating mechanical and electrical sensors on the same platform to enable the study of the change in electro-mechanical properties of benign and cancerous breast tissues. In this work, we present the analysis of the electrical characterization of the tissue specimens and also demonstrate the feasibility of using the sensor for the mechanical characterization of tissue specimens. Eight strain gauges acting as mechanical sensors were fabricated using poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) conducting polymer on poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) as the substrate material. Eight electrical sensors were fabricated using SU-8 pillars on gold (Au) pads which were patterned on the strain gauges separated by a thin insulator (SiO2 1.0 μm). These pillars were coated with gold to make them conducting. The electro-mechanical sensors are integrated on the same substrate. The sensor array covers a 180 μm × 180 μm area and the size of the complete device is 20 mm in diameter. The diameter of each breast tissue core used in the present study was 1 mm and the thickness was 8 μm. The region of interest was 200 μm × 200 μm. A microindentation technique was used to characterize the mechanical properties of the breast tissues. The sensor is integrated with conducting SU-8 pillars to study the electrical property of the tissue. Through electro-mechanical characterization studies using this MEMS-based sensor, we were able to measure the accuracy of the fabricated device and ascertain the difference between benign and cancers breast tissue specimens.