Two-dimensional parallel dispenser for microarray printing

Parallel printing in a microarray format is becoming increasingly important. This paper presents a 2-D multi-channel dispenser with a spotting spacing of 500 μm. The dispenser is continuously loaded from a 384-well plate format and shoots upward. New technologies using polyimide substrate was developed, and the flexibility of the polyimide sheets allows scaling the dispenser up to an array format of 24×16. Drop formation is analyzed by stroboscopic illumination and by spotting onto glass slides. Droplets of 65 pL are dispensed in parallel up to 5 kHz at a droplet speed of 2 m/s.