Sharply tuned small force measurement with a biomimetic sensor

Abstract

Hair cells in biological hearing organs transform mechanical stimuli into neuronal signals with great sensitivity, sharp frequency selectivity, and wide range of intensity. By combining principle of adaptation in hair cells with electronic engineering, we have produced a biomimetic force sensor under water showing all these features. For the nano-Newton force signal, the biomimetic sensor showed that more than an order of magnitude increases in sensitivity and frequency selectivity compared to the passive sensor. The nonlinear amplification mechanism in the hair cell is demonstrated by showing that the hair cell can precisely detect pulse signals weaker than noise.