Inkjet printing as a technique for filling of micro-wells with biocompatible polymers

• Micro-well fabrication on a silicon microscope slide.
• Inkjet printing of PVP solutions.
• Large array spotting with high precision.
• Tunable deposition results.

We present an innovative technique to dispense precise amounts of polymer solutions into large arrays of microscopic wells. An inkjet printer (NP 2.1 GeSim, Germany) is used to fill micro-wells with poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP K10). The micro-wells are fabricated with cavity diameters of 300 μm down to 50 μm with SU-8 with two steps of negative photolithography. Inkjet printing is shown to be a suitable technique to dispense defined volumes of solution (down to 0.3 nL) in a highly reproducible way. The filling with polymer can be controlled varying the concentration of the solution and the number of dispensed droplets. Solutions of up to 20 wt.% PVP in water are successfully spotted.

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