The design and fabrication of a thermally actuated polymeric microgripper incorporating a bare gold working electrode is described. Initial electrochemical tests confirm that the microgripper sensor works as an effective microelectrode, opening up exciting possibilities in single cell measurements.

The detailed consideration of the chemistry occurring during the fabrication process is very important for SU-8 compared to other photoresists. In SU-8, the solvent does far more than just act as a carrier for the photoactive compounds: it plays a prominent role in the processing chemistry. In this paper we explain how the change of solvent from old to new formulations of SU-8 has an effect on the processing of this resist. We then show how, and why, in the modern 2000 series formulations the manipulation of the polymerization rate via variation of the exposure dose allows dark field features on a mask design to be reduced, in a controlled manner, by up to 30% while still maintaining good sidewall profiles in features.

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. ABSTRACTThis work presents the successful fabrication of a thermally actuated U-shaped microgripper that has been specially designed to enable low voltage operation for bidirectional in plane deflection. The microgripper tips are carefully designed to match the biological species being manipulated, which has been demonstrated by the successful manipulation of 10 -40 µm diameter particles used to simulate biological cells.

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. ABSTRACTThe successful modification of the tips of a cellular microgripper into ion selective electrodes capable of sensing calcium ions at concentrations as low as 8x10 -5 M is described. The modification involves applying the process of adding the components of all solid state ion selective electrodes. Specifically, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) is added to a gold electrode protruding from the microgripper tip; this is then coated with a poly(vinyl chloride) PVC based calcium selective membrane. Excellent Nernstian response was observed from our devices, with calibration slopes of 29.5 ± 2.5 mV/dec.

Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Electrothermally actuated microgripper sensor devices that are capable of simultaneous manipulation of live mouse oocytes and the sensing of potassium ion efflux are presented. The ion selective electrode technology applied to a microgripper device yielded a first generation ion sensor with competitive characteristics in their selectivity, sensitivity, stability and temporal resolution. The microgripper sensor devices could readily detect the 9 ± 3 mM efflux of potassium ions upon mechanical stimulation. This technology is generic and applicable to generating charge sensing microgrippers.