Coupled resonances allow studying the aging of adhesive contacts between a QCM surface and single, micrometer-sized particles.

Interparticle contacts and contacts between particles and surfaces are known to change over time. The contact area, the contact stiffness, and the contact strength usually increase as the contact ages. Contact aging is mostly driven by capillary forces, but also by plastic deformation. Making use of acoustic resonators, we have studied the stiffness of contacts between the surface of a quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and individual, micrometer-sized particles adsorbed to the resonator surface. Studying single particles avoids ensemble-averaging. Central to the analysis is the coupled resonance, occurring when a surface-attached particle together with the link forms a resonator of its own. If the frequency of this second resonator comes close to one of the crystal's overtones, plots of shifts in resonance bandwidth versus overtone order display a resonance curve. This secondary resonance is caused by the coupling between the particle's resonance and the main resonance. One can read the frequency of the coupled resonance from this plot. Similarly, resonance curves are observed in plots of frequency and bandwidth versus time, if the contact stiffness varies smoothly with time. Because the coupled resonance is a characteristic feature, it is easily identified even in cases where frequency shifts of some other origin are superimposed onto the data. For the cases studied here, the links stiffened while they dried. Interestingly, the efficiency of coupling between the particle resonance and the main resonance decreased at the same time. This can be explained with an increase in the link's bending stiffness. The analysis highlights that a QCM experiment amounts to vibrational spectroscopy on surface-attached particles. Among the application examples is the adsorption and drying of a lycopodium spore. Clearly, the technique is also applicable to problems of bioadhesion.