A silicon-micromachined pin for contact droplet printing

This paper reports the design and fabrication of a micromachined silicon pin that serves as a novel contact-printing tool. More specific application is in the DNA and protein microarray field for small and precise droplet printing onto a solid support. Our goal is to develop low cost, high performance silicon pins as simple replacement of the stainless-steel pins used in typical microarray robots. The test results show an average droplet size of 38 /spl mu/m in diameter, compared with over 100 /spl mu/m for the commercial pins, as well as more consistent droplet sizes.