A silicon micromachined pin for contact droplet printing

We report the design and fabrication of a micromachined silicon pin that serves as a contact-printing device. The pins have potential application in the DNA microarray field for small and precise droplet printing onto a solid support. Our goal is to provide an economic solution for better accuracy and repeatability for such applications as DNA and protein printing by using MEMS technology. The test results showed an average droplet size of 16 /spl mu/m in diameter, compared with over 100 /spl mu/m for the commercial pins, as well as more consistent droplet sizes.