Hahn-Schickard, Georges-Koehler-Allee 103, 79110 Freiburg, Germany.
Hahn-Schickard, Allmandring 9b, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany.
Sensors (Basel). 2020 Feb 29;20(5):1333. doi: 10.3390/s20051333.
Inkjet technology as a maskless, direct-writing technology offers the potential for structured deposition of functional materials for the realization of electrodes for, e.g., sensing applications. In this work, electrodes were realized by inkjet-printing of commercial nanoparticle gold ink on planar substrates and, for the first time, onto the 2.5D surfaces of a 0.5 mm-deep microfluidic chamber produced in cyclic olefin copolymer (COC). The challenges of a poor wetting behavior and a low process temperature of the COC used were solved by a pretreatment with oxygen plasma and the combination of thermal (130 °C for 1 h) and photonic (955 mJ/cm²) steps for sintering. By performing the photonic curing, the resistance could be reduced by about 50% to 22.7 µΩ cm. The printed gold structures were mechanically stable (optimal cross-cut value) and porous (roughness factors between 8.6 and 24.4 for 3 and 9 inkjet-printed layers, respectively). Thiolated DNA probes were immobilized throughout the porous structure without the necessity of a surface activation step. Hybridization of labeled DNA probes resulted in specific signals comparable to signals on commercial screen-printed electrodes and could be reproduced after regeneration. The process described may facilitate the integration of electrodes in 2.5D lab-on-a-chip systems.
喷墨技术作为一种无掩模、直接书写技术,为实现用于传感应用等的电极的功能材料的结构化沉积提供了潜力。在这项工作中,通过在平面基底上和首次在环状烯烃共聚物(COC)制成的 0.5 毫米深微流控室的 2.5D 表面上喷墨打印商业纳米金球墨来实现电极。通过使用氧气等离子体预处理和组合热(130°C 1 小时)和光子(955 mJ/cm²)步骤进行烧结,可以解决 COC 的润湿性差和加工温度低的问题。通过进行光子固化,可以将电阻降低约 50%,降至 22.7 µΩ cm。打印的金结构具有机械稳定性(最佳十字切割值)和多孔性(分别为 3 和 9 层喷墨打印的粗糙度因子在 8.6 和 24.4 之间)。硫醇化的 DNA 探针被固定在整个多孔结构中,而无需表面活化步骤。标记的 DNA 探针的杂交产生了与商业丝网印刷电极相当的特异性信号,并且可以在再生后重现。所描述的过程可以促进在 2.5D 芯片实验室系统中集成电极。