The properties of ZnO/SiO2/Si surface acoustic wave (SAW) Love mode sensors were examined and optimized to achieve high mass sensitivity. SAW devices A and B, were designed and fabricated to operate at resonant frequencies around 0.7 and 1.5 GHz. The ZnO films grown by pulsed laser deposition on SiO2/Si demonstrated c-axis growth and the fabricated devices showed guided shear horizontal surface acoustic wave (or Love mode) propagation. Acoustic phase velocity in the ZnO layer was measured in both devices A and B and theoretical and experimental evaluation of the mass sensitivity showed that the maximum sensitivity is obtained for devices with ZnO guiding layer thicknesses of 340 nm and 160 nm for devices A and B, respectively. The performance of the SAW sensors was validated by measuring the mass of a well-characterized polystyrene-polyacrylic acid diblock copolymer film. For the optimized sensors, maximum mass sensitivity values were as high as 4.309 mu m(2)/pg for device A operating at 0.7477 GHz, and 8.643 mu m(2)/pg for device B operating at 1.5860 GHz. The sensors demonstrated large frequency shifts per applied mass (0.1-4 MHz), excellent linearity, and extended range in the femto-gram region. The large frequency shifts indicated that these sensors have the potential to measure mass two to three orders of magnitude lower in the atto-gram range. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.