{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,16]],"date-time":"2026-03-16T16:56:00Z","timestamp":1773680160791,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"AIP Publishing","issue":"3","funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001774","name":"University of Sydney","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["SOAR award"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["SOAR award"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001774","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100015210","name":"Faculty of Engineering, University of Sydney","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["Engineering Research Scholarship"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Engineering Research Scholarship"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100015210","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["pubs.aip.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Mass is a fundamental property of matter that gives rise to both inertia and gravity, and its accurate quantification is central to the development of science and technology. Different technologies and methods have been developed that enable us to determine the mass of systems across length scales, from the subatomic world all the way to the cosmic scale, with such measurements generally performed in vacuum or air conditions. However, directly measuring the actual mass of objects or systems while they are submerged in liquid environments such as water remains challenging and highly debated, limiting technological developments and the understanding of fundamental processes such as the regulation of a mammalian cell\u2019s mass. Here, we use a photothermally actuated custom-built inertial picobalance to perform cantilever-based mass measurements of well-defined silicon microweight samples in liquid environments. Our experiments demonstrate that it is possible to determine the actual mass of the samples attached to the cantilevers when submerged in water, and even within a liquid with a higher density than that of the samples themselves. We anticipate that this study will contribute to and stimulate the development and application of mass sensing techniques, facilitate the creation of new metrology solutions, and improve understanding of the behavior of microresonators in liquid environments.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1063\/5.0278760","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,16]],"date-time":"2026-03-16T16:07:43Z","timestamp":1773677263000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1063\/aip-crossmark-policy-page","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Inertial mass measurements at the microscale in liquid"],"prefix":"10.1063","volume":"97","author":[{"given":"Liping Kevin","family":"Ge","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Sydney 1 , Sydney, NSW 2006,","place":["Australia"]},{"name":"The University of Sydney Nano Institute, University of Sydney 2 , Sydney, NSW 2006,","place":["Australia"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9155-6626","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zhong","family":"Zheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney 3 , Sydney, NSW 2006,","place":["Australia"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7096-0627","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"John E.","family":"Sader","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Graduate Aerospace Laboratories and Department of Applied Physics, California Institute of Technology 4 , Pasadena, California 91125,","place":["USA"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sascha","family":"Martin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Physics, University of Basel 5 , Basel 4056,","place":["Switzerland"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6434-1643","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Zongwen","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The University of Sydney Nano Institute, University of Sydney 2 , Sydney, NSW 2006,","place":["Australia"]},{"name":"School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney 3 , Sydney, NSW 2006,","place":["Australia"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3658-9393","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"David","family":"Martinez-Martin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and IT, University of Sydney 1 , Sydney, NSW 2006,","place":["Australia"]},{"name":"The University of Sydney Nano Institute, University of Sydney 2 , Sydney, NSW 2006,","place":["Australia"]}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"317","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,16]]},"reference":[{"issue":"4","key":"2026031612073558600_c1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1646","DOI":"10.1021\/ac061795g","article-title":"Liquid-phase chemical and biochemical detection using fully integrated magnetically actuated complementary metal oxide semiconductor resonant cantilever sensor systems","volume":"79","year":"2007","journal-title":"Anal. 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