Understanding Micro-Droplet Interface Bilayers for Developing Bioinspired Sensors

Droplet-based biomolecular arrays form the basis for a new class of bioinspired material system, whereby decreasing the sizes of the droplets and increasing the number of droplets can lead to higher functional density for the array. In this paper, we report on a non-microfluidic approach to form and connect nanoliter-to-femtoliter, lipid-coated aqueous droplets in oil to form micro-droplet interface bilayers (μDIBs). Two different modes of operation are reported for dispensing a wide range of droplet sizes (2–200μm radius). Due to the high surface-area-to-volume ratios of microdroplets at these length scales, droplet shrinking is prominent, which affects the stability and lifetime of the bilayer. To better quantify these effects, we measure the shrinkage rates for 8 different water droplet/oil compositions and study the effect of lipid placement and lipid type on morphological changes to μDIBs.