Hummink NAZCA High-Precision Capillary Flow Printer

ABSTRACT Controlled deposition of materials is central to realizing a wide variety of biomedically relevant devices, from immunoassays to microfluidics. Well-established printing techniques such as inkjet and aerosol jet have opened new possibilities for scaling down material consumption while boosting performance of devices; however, these printers are limited to resolutions > 10 microns with restrictions on printable ink properties that often preclude utility in many biomolecule printing applications. The Hummink NAZCA printer is a first-of-its-kind capillary flow printer that offers < 1 µm resolution and compatibility with inks spanning a broad range of viscosities. Operation of the printer is simple: A small volume of ink is loaded into a glass micropipette, which is brought into close proximity with a substrate such that deposition proceeds via capillary forces. The system borrows its core operation control from atomic force microscopy (AFM), making it possible to offer dual functionality as a deposition and imaging tool. Over the last six months, Duke University has been the first institution in the United States to test the NAZCA via a rental agreement with Hummink and already the impact on numerous NIH-funded projects has been significant. We have realized the first fully printed submicron electronic biosensing transistors, demonstrated enhanced biomarker detection with printed nanoparticles for surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, and shown an order of magnitude reduction in costly biomolecular (e.g., antibody) ink usage for immunoassay printing. Hence, our team of 4 Major and 5 Minor Users seeks this S10 Shared Instrumentation Grant to support the acquisition of the NAZCA to continue supporting the already impacted projects and enable numerous other NIH-relevant work. Seven NIH-funded R01 projects will immediately be impacted by the advantages the NAZCA tool provides for high-resolution printing. Long-term objectives for the NAZCA are to provide a novel, shared-use instrument for low-volume, direct deposition of materials and to facilitate new research directions in spaces such as DNA origami, biomedical wearable sensors, and nanofiber formation for nerve defect repair.