Study of highly selective and sensitive microarray structure based on hydrophilic/hydrophobic SAMs (Self Assembled Monolayers)

Abstract

A microarray-based immunoassay requires only small volume of the sample in each array spot, which leads to faster completion of the immunoreactions than with an ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) [. However, this method still has some technical limitations such as poor signal sensitivity, poor detection limit, large sample consumption, high evaporation rate, coffee stain effect, low signal/noise ratio (SNR) and poor quality images. Recently, SAM (Self-Assembled Monolayer) method was extensively researched for control the surface wettability [. Especially, hydrophobic SAM functionalizations which has low surface energy are possible to prevent sample evaporation [ and to achieve anti-biofouling on them. Therefore, an introduction of hydrophobic SAM would enhance the detection sensitivity on bio array chip [4]. In this work, we fabricated a highly selective and sensitive pre-patterned microarray structure by using MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System) process and hydrophilic/hydrophobic SAMs with various precursors.