The techniques described herein are directed to removing material that has attached to or preventing material from attaching to the surface of a piezoelectric cantilever. The material can be a target material, other, non-target, material that may be weakly bound or attached to the cantilever sensor, or the material may be a combination thereof. Accordingly, the cantilever sensor can be reused, in situ, without degraded detection performance of the cantilever sensor. The techniques may also be utilized to remove all material that has attached to a surface of the cantilever sensor which provides means for reusing the cantilever sensor.