Biomolecule storage on non-modified thermoplastic microfluidic chip by ink-jet printing of ionogels

[EN] This paper reports an innovative technique for reagents storage in microfluidic devices by means of a one-step UV-photoprintable ionogel-based microarray on non-modified polymeric substrates. Although the ionogel and the ink-jet printing technology are well published, this is the first study where both are used for long-term reagent storage in lab-on-a-chip devices. This technology for reagent storage is perfectly compatible with mass production fabrication processes since pre-treatment of the device substrate is not necessary and inkjet printing allows for an efficient reagent deposition process. The functionality of this microarray is demonstrated by testing the release of biotin-647 after being stored for 1 month at room temperature. Analysis of the fluorescence of the ionogel-based microarray that contains biotin-647 demonstrated that 90% of the biotin-647 present was released from the ionogel-based microarray after pumping PBS 0.1% Tween at 37 °C. Moreover, the activity of biotin-647 after being released from the ionogel-based microarray was investigated trough the binding capability of this biotin to a microcontact printed chip surface with avidin. These findings pave the way for a novel, one-step, cheap and mass production on-chip reagents storage method applicable to other reagents such as antibodies and proteins and enzymes.

Standard cell automated layout for a CMOS 50 MHz 8 × 8 bit pipelined parallel dadda multiplier

An 8 × 8 pipelined parallel multiplier which uses the Dadda scheme is presented. The multiplier has been implemented in a 3-μm n-well CMOS process with two layers of metal using a standard cell automatic placement and routing program. The design uses a form of pipelined carry look-ahead adder in the final stage of summation, thus providing a significant contribution to the high performance of the multiplier. The design is expected to operate at a clock frequency of at least 50 MHz and has a flush time of seven clock cycles. The design illustrates a possible method of implementing an irregular architecture in VLSI using multiple levels of low-resistance, low-capacitance interconnect and automated layout techniques.

Short-channel polymer field-effect-transistor fabrication using spin-coating-induced edge template and ink-jet printing

A method to fabricate polymer field-effect transistors with submicron channel lengths is described. A thin polymer film is spin coated on a prepatterned resist with a low resolution to create a thickness contrast in the overcoated polymer layer. After plasma and solvent etching, a submicron-sized line structure, which templates the contour of the prepattern, is obtained. A further lift-off process is applied to define source-drain electrodes of transistors. With a combination of ink-jet printing, transistors with channel length down to 400 nm have been fabricated by this method. We show that drive current density increases as expected, while the on/off current ratio 106 is achieved. © 2005 American Institute of Physics.

Ink-jet printing for patterning engineering surfaces

This work explored the use of industrial drop-on-demand inkjet printing for masking steel surfaces on engineering components, followed by chemical etching, to produce patterned surfaces. A solvent-based ink was printed on to mild steel samples and the influences of substrate topography and substrate temperature were investigated. Contact angle measurements were used to assess wettability. Regular patterns of circular spots (∼60 /on diameter) and more complex mask patterns were printed. Variation of the substrate temperature had negligible effect on the final size of the printed drops or on the resolution achieved. Colored optical interference fringes were observed on the dried ink deposits and correlated with film thickness measurements by whitelight interferometry.

Satellite formation in drop-on-demand printing of polymer solutions

High speed photographic images of jets formed from dilute solutions of polystyrene in diethyl phthalate ejected from a piezoelectric drop-on-demand inkjet head have been analyzed in order to study the formation and distribution of drops as the ligament collapses. Particular attention has been paid to satellite drops, and their relative separation and sizes. The effect of polymer concentration was investigated. The distribution of nearest-neighbour centre spacing between the drops formed from the ligament is better described by a 2-parameter modified gamma distribution than by a Gaussian distribution. There are (at least) two different populations of satellite size relative to the main drop size formed at normal jetting velocities, with ratios of about three between the diameters of the main drop and the successive satellite sizes. The distribution of the differences in drop size between neighbouring drops is close to Gaussian, with a small non-zero mean for low polymer concentrations, which is associated with the conical shape of the ligament prior to its collapse and the formation of satellites. Higher polymer concentrations result in slower jets for the same driving impulse, and also a tendency to form ligaments with a near-constant width. Under these conditions the mean of the distribution of differences in nearest-neighbour drop size was zero.

Air stable complementary polymer circuits fabricated in ambient condition by inkjet printing

Air stable complementary polymer inverters were demonstrated by inkjet printing of both top-gate electrodes and the semiconductors in ambient conditions. The p-type and n-type polymer semiconductors were also thermally annealed in ambient conditions after printing. The good performance of circuits in ambient condition shows that the transistors are not only air-stable in term of ambient humidity and oxygen, but also inert to ion migration through dielectrics from the printed gate. The result obtained here has further confirmed the feasibility of fabrication of low-cost polymer complementary circuits in a practical environment. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.