Construction of picoliter-nanoliter self-filling volumetric pipettes

A technique is described whereby-volume, self-filling micropipettes can be constructed with minimal time and effort. The delivery volumes of such pipettes may range from several picoliters to more than 100 nl. The delivery of a given pipette of even the smallest volume is precise, generally yielding standard deviations much less than 1% of the mean volume as measured by liquid-scintillation counting of isotope dilutions. The technique offers considerable advantage to previously described techniques for constructing small constant-volume pipettes.