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Updated: Jun 7, 2026
A Paired Bead and Magnet Array for Molding Microwells with Variable Concave Geometries
Published on: January 28, 2018
Fabrication of microwell arrays based on two-dimensional ordered polystyrene microspheres for high-throughput
Chuansen Liu1, Jiangjiang Liu, Dan Gao
1The Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorus Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Abstract:
This paper describes a method of fabricating rounded bottom microwell arrays (MA) in poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) by molding a monolayer of ordered polystyrene (PS) microspheres. PS microspheres were self-assembled on a glass slide and partially melted mainly from the bottom at 240 °C to increase adhesive force with the substrate. The partially melted PS arrays were used as master to generate MA. Microwell sizes are tunable in the 10-20 μm range with rounded bottoms; such a 3D structure is not readily obtainable through conventional soft lithography. Both adherent and nonadherent cell types can be retained in the microwells with high efficiency. As a demonstration of the advantage of real-time cell screening with this MA, single cell enzyme kinetic analysis was also carried out on trapped single cells. The PDMS MA may find applications in high-throughput drug screening, guided formation of cell clusters, and multicellular communication.
