SU-8-carbon composite as conductive photoresist for biochip applications

A composite photoresist has been developed for the direct photopatterning of electrodes useful as biochip substrates. The material is composed of SU-8 polymer added with graphite carbon filler which enables patterning of conductive thin films (22 μm) on both glass substrate and transparency flexible film with a standard UV photolithography protocol. The resolution obtained using the conductive composite compared well with the bare resist, with lateral resolutions of 5 and 10 μm for bare and conductive resists, respectively. The obtained electrodes, after an electrochemical pre-treatment, exhibited very good electrochemical behaviors, opening the path to various electrochemical detections and grafting possibilities.In order to demonstrate the potentialities of the developed material in the biosensors and biochips field, DNA probes were electrografted, using diazonium chemistry, directly at the composite photoresist surface. Target oligonucleotide interactions were detected using chemiluminescent labeling and a satisfactory detection limit of 0.25 nM target sequence was demonstrated with a detection ranging over three orders of magnitude.

► Photopatternable conductive composites shall be an interesting alternative to screen-printed electrodes.
► We present a proof of concept study for the photopatterning of conductive composite.
► Electrografting of accessible DNA probes onto photopatterned structures was demonstrated using chemiluminescent labeling.