SONOPLOT MICROPLOTTER Proto, Manual

Page: 32 / 67

similar wells. Check the solvent resistance of your well material first before using these
solvents.
Nanometallic inks using ethanol or water as a solvent can safely be loaded in the wells of a
standard microtiter plate.
Another concern regarding inks is their volatility. While it can work with a wider range of
solutions than inkjets or similar competing technologies, a Microplotter instrument still has
difficulty with highly volatile solvents, such as acetone. These solvents evaporate so quickly at
the microscale that a Microplotter system can only dispense inks based on them for a short time
before they completely dry up. If a solvent can be selected for the particular ink of interest, it is
best to use the one with the lowest volatility. Most solvents with a volatility less than that of
toluene have been found to work well in Microplotter instruments.
After choosing an ink, loading it in a well, and setting the location of that well, the next step is to
draw a simple line-based pattern for dispensing the ink onto the substrate surface.
Once the drawing of the new pattern is finished, click on the SonoGuide window to switch back
to that application.
Manually move the dispenser over to the well containing the ink to be deposited and down into
the ink until the tip is below the fill level of the well. The ink should start filling the dispenser
through capillary action. If not, please refer to the previous section or Chapter 6. You may also
set the position of this well as described above.
Move the dispenser up to a safe height above the surface and then over to the upper-left corner
of the area on the substrate you wish to dispense on. As described in the previous section,
recalibrate the fluid-laden dispenser and use the
Find Surface toolbar item to move down
until fluid contact is made with the surface. Load the pattern you drew by choosing File |
Open pattern... and loading LinePattern.pattern , saved in Documents . The pattern
should begin dispensing immediately.
Once dispensing is finished, empty the fluid from the dispenser as described above. Again, this
last fluid ejection step is unnecessary, but might be required if you wished to work with a
different solution or if the dispenser would be sitting unused for some time.
Finally, click on the
Home
toolbar item to return the positioner to its safe resting location and
remove the printed substrate from the deck of the Microplotter system.
28