Selective infiltration and storage of picoliter volumes of liquids into sealed SU-8 microwells

Abstract

This paper describes the selective infiltration and storage of picoliter volumes of water and IPA in arrays of sealed SU-8 microwells. Microwells, with a volume of approximately 300 picoliters, are fabricated employing photolithography and a polymer onto polymer lamination method to seal the structures with a thin cover of SU-8 and PDMS in order to suppress the evaporation of the infiltrated liquids. A glass capillary is used to punch through the SU-8/PDMS cover and to infiltrate the liquid of interest into the microwells. The influence of the mixing ratio of the PDMS and its curing agent is studied and the results show that a lower ratio of 2:1 suppresses the evaporation more when compared to the standard mixing ratio of 10:1. In regards to water and IPA, the dwell time in the reservoirs was increased by approximately 50 % and 450 % respectively. Depending on the physical properties of the microwells and the liquids, the SU-8/PDMS cover suppresses the evaporation up to 32 mins for water and 463 mins for IPA, respectively, until the microwell is completely empty again. Additionally, multiple infiltrations of the same microwell are demonstrated using two immiscible liquids IPA and paraffin oil. Based on the popular polymers SU-8 and PDMS, the sealed microwell structures are scalable and combinable with different glass capillaries according to the needs of future analytical research and medical diagnostics.