Fluorescence detection in (sub-)nanoliter microarrays

The goal of our TU Delft interfaculty research program is to develop intelligent molecular diagnostic systems (IMDS) that can analyze liquid samples that contain a variety of biochemical compounds such as those associated with fermentation processes. One specific project within the IMDS program focuses on photon sensors. In order to analyze the liquid samples we use dedicated microarrays. At this stage, these are basically miniaturized micro titre plates. Typical dimensions of a vial are 200 x 200 x 20 mu m(3). These dimensions may be varied and the shape of the vials can be modified with a result that the volume of the vials varies from 0.5 to 1.6 nl. For all experiments, we have used vials with the shape of a truncated pyramid. These vials are fabricated in silicon by a wet etching process. For testing purposes the vials are filled with rhodamine solutions of various concentrations. To avoid evaporation glycerol-water (1:1, v/v) with a viscosity of 8.3 times the viscosity of water is used as solvent. We aim at wide field-of-view imaging at the expense of absolute sensitivity: the field-of-view increases quadratically with decreasing magnification. Small magnification, how ever, implies low Numerical Aperture (NA). The ability of a microscope objective to collect photons is proportional to the square of the NA. To image the entire microarray we have used an epi-illumination fluorescence microscope equipped with a low magnification (2.5 x / 0.075) objective and a scientific CCD camera to integrate the photons emitted from the fluorescing particles in the solutions in the vials. From these experiments we found that for this setup the detection limit is on the order of micromolar concentrations of fluorescing particles. This translates to 10(8) molecules per vial.