Abstract
Patterning of micro- and nanoscale topologies and surface properties of polymer devices is of particular importance for a broad range of life science applications, including cell-adhesion assays and highly sensitive bioassays. The manufacturing of such devices necessitates cumbersome multiple-step fabrication procedures and results in surface properties which degrade over time. This critically hinders their wide-spread dissemination. Here, we simultaneously mold and surface energy pattern microstructures in off-stoichiometric thiol-ene by area-selective monomer self-assembly in a rapid micro-reaction injection molding cycle. We replicated arrays of 1,843,650 hydrophilic-in-hydrophobic femtolitre-wells with long-term stable surface properties and magnetically trapped beads with 75% and 87.2% efficiency in single- and multiple-seeding events, respectively. These results form the basis for ultrasensitive digital biosensors, specifically, and for the fabrication of medical devices and life science research tools, generally.
Highlights
Microstructured surfaces and microfluidic components are increasingly important for a diverse range of biological and clinical applications, e.g., in protein and cell studies[1,2,3]
We developed a two-part HIH mold consisting of a milled Al half with good thermal conductivity, and a UV transparent microstructured half consisting of fused silica and TeflonTM
A mold consisting of micropillar arrays enables in situ surface energy patterned HIH femtolitre-well arrays with hydrophilic well bottom and sidewalls and hydrophobic interspacing
Summary
Microstructured surfaces and microfluidic components are increasingly important for a diverse range of biological and clinical applications, e.g., in protein and cell studies[1,2,3]. Digital bioassays commonly exploit arrays of microwells as their hardware and can extensively benefit from selective surface energy patterning[9] In such systems, the sample of interest is compartmentalized in well reactors amenable to high-throughput screening or online monitoring[10]. Femtolitre-well arrays for bead seeding in digital bioassays were previously fabricated mainly using cleanroom-based techniques[9,12,13,14], poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) stamp imprinting[15], or IM16,17. These materials and fabrication methods are expensive, not scalable, or do not result in defined surface energy features, the latter
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