Bio-print atelier

In the bio-print atelier micro-arrays are made by the ink-jet print technology. These micro-arrays are applied for all kind of biological assays. MiPlaza's equipment engineering department has built two high-tech ink-jet printers to guarantee the high quality of the production of the micro-arrays. These printing systems are shown in figure 1.
The first generation printers are equipped with a single nozzle printhead, the next generation applies a multi-nozzle printhead to decrease the processing time.

The printers are provided with several features to have an optimal quality control. As shown in figure 2 all droplets are checked with a two-camera set-up during printing to ensure the formation of all spots on the substrate. To prevent mistakes with the placement of the different print fluids in the system, all containers are provided with a barcode. These barcodes are read with a vertical camera and compared with the fluid sequence that has to be printed. Since many different fluids have to be printed, an automatic cleaning procedure of the nozzle is implemented.
The height of the fluids in the cleaning containers is checked with a fluid level gauge.

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

An example of a micro-array is shown in figure 3. The spots are formed by depositing several droplets of typically 100-150 pl with a frequency of 50 Hz. The spot size depends on the type of substrate and the amount of droplets.
In this array the spot size is approximately 200 um and the spots are positioned at a pitch of 400 um.

Fig. 3

The spotting (ink-jet printing) is the first step in the line of the micro-array fabrication. In the next step the printed molecules are cross-linked to the substrate. The way of cross-linking depends on the type of material and the applied substrate. As shown in Figure 4, in our line an UV system is applied to attach the molecules.

Fig. 4

Fig. 5

In the last step all the molecules that are not bound to the substrate are washed away and the positions between the spots are blocked to prevent an increase of the background during the biological assay. A photo of the washing process is shown in figure 5.

Fiber optics application atelier

In order to enable the application of optical fibers for all kind of different purposes an atelier has been set-up and expertise is available to allow for all kind of fibre processing, like cutting, polishing, fusing, assembling etc.

Design capabilities

Within the Device Processing Facilities ample expertise with design making is available. This holds for mask design for lithographic purposes (but also for e.g. powder blasting) and for the (mechanical) design of tools, devices and parts in both 2D and 3D representation.