New Procedure to Record the Rupture of Bonds between Macromolecules and the Surface of the Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM)

It is shown that an increase in the amplitude of QCM shear oscillations during frequency scanning around the resonance frequency is accompanied (at a definite voltage) by distortions in the amplitude-frequency dependence for QCM. We demonstrated that these distortions are connected to the rupture of macromolecules from the QCM surface. It is shown that the identification of the rupture of particles and macromolecules from the QCM surface can be carried out by relying on the analysis of these distortions of the amplitude-frequency dependence. The distortions were distinguished as a signal. The number of broken bonds can be estimated from the value of this distortion signal, and the threshold voltage applied to the system can be used to estimate the rupture force to high accuracy. Using the proposed method, we estimated the strength of a physical bond, which was 3 pN. This procedure can be useful for studying biological objects and represents an advanced step in the development of the REVS (rupture event scanning) technique.