A silicon micromachined open tubular reactor for immunosensor applications

In this publication, a micromachined open tubular reactor is presented, which has been developed for the rapid and reliable performance of heterogeneous immunoassays in a miniatunzed chemical analysis system. In contrary to previous designs, this device was realized in conventional <100> silicon with a novel two-side structuring process. Special care was given to the silicon oxide layer deposited at the inner reactor walls, which has to exhibit a high efficiency and stability for the coupling of immunological receptor layers. The performance of the reactor was tested with a miniaturized ISFET-FIA-ELISA-system using T-2 toxin as a model analyte. In this system the micromachined reactors showed a high signal reproducibility and the immunological receptor layer could be regenerated repeatedly. Moreover, a major benefit is drawn from the easy handling of the micromachined reactor, which can be integrated into the system by a simple snap-in mount.