Allegro Research Limited

Allegro Technologies Limited

Cecilia Franken

Igor V Shvets

Sergei Makarov

Juergen Osing

Alexander Shvets

Aoife Gallagher

Jeurgen Osing

Tomasz P Zawada

There is provided a method of cleaning a dispensing assembly for small liquid droplets less than 50 &#x3bc;l and even as low as 10 nl. A purging step with pressurized gas followed by a cleaning step using a suitable cleaning liquid is carried out a number of times.

Cleaning of system for dispensing of liquid droplets

The present invention is directed to a liquid droplet monitoring and measuring apparatus for use with a liquid dispensing system of the type comprising a nozzle having a liquid dispensing tip and means for delivering the dispensed liquid through the nozzle onto a receiving substrate. Further, the invention provides a method of monitoring and measuring the volume of a liquid droplet as it is being dispensed from a liquid dispensing system comprising a nozzle having a dispensing tip. The main use for the invention is in the fields of drug discovery, genomics, medical diagnostics and other life science-related applications. The invention could also be used in other areas for example in the food industry, cosmetic industry or the chemical industry.

Apparatus and method for monitoring and measurement of droplets

There is provided a liquid droplet monitoring and measuring apparatus () for a liquid droplet dispensing system having a nozzle () with a dispensing tip (). The apparatus () comprises an inner chamber () surrounded by an outer shield (), preferably not in contact with each other. An RF oscillator electrically energizes the liquid through an electrode (). The inner chamber () is connected through pre-amplifiers (), band pass filters (conditioning amplifier () to a signal read-out device (). The operation of the apparatus is based on the measurement of the capacitance between the nozzle () and the inner chamber (). As a droplet () grows on the dispensing tip (), the capacitance between the nozzle () and the inner chamber () increases. Therefore, the signal detected and received by the signal read-out device () changes. This change is directly related to the volume of the droplet which can therefore be measured. In another embodiment, the liquid is not energized but is used to change the dielectric constant of a capacitor formed by, for example, the nozzle () and a substrate.

Apparatus and method for droplet measurements

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Dublin, Ireland

Cecilia Franken