Fabrication Of Sieved-Microwells For Single Particle Capture

Abstract

<div>The use of microwells is popular for a wide range of applications due to its’ ease of use. However, the seeding of conventional microwells, which are closed at the bottom, is restricted to gravitational sedimentation for cell or particle deposition and therefore require lengthy settling times to maximize well occupancy. Microfluidics has accelerated cell or particle capture through flow but is mostly limited to gravitationally-driven settling for capture into the wells. An alternative approach to conventional closed-microwells, sieved microwells supersedes reliance on gravity by using hydrodynamic forces through the open pores at the bottom of the microwells to draw targets into the wells. The aim of this thesis is to develop a rapid and high-throughput fabrication method for sieved microwells and integrate the microwells into a double-layered microfluidic device to enable crossflow trapping. The resulting device achieves an 87% well occupancy in under 10 seconds.</div>