Method of fabricating coded particles
OwnerNigel Guy Skinner, Amit Kumar Som +1inventors
InventorsNigel Guy Skinner, Amit Kumar Som, Susan Louise Watson
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Abstract
Coded microparticles for use in chemical or biological library synthesis are produced by delineating particles in a plastics sheet supported on a substrate and removing the particles from the substrate.
Claims12
A method of fabricating coded particles comprising:
- providing a sheet of polymeric material on a substrate;
- delineating the sheet into a plurality of particles without destroying the integrity of the substrate;
- machine-readably encoding the particles;
- and
- removing the particles from the substrate.
A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein adhesion between said sheet and the substrate is produced by a radiation-sensitive sacrificial layer whose properties are modified to reduce the strength of the adhesion to release the particles.
A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the particles are delineated by laser machining.
A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the encoding comprises the formation of a plurality of switchable elements around the periphery of each particle.
A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein each particle is formed with at least one reading sense identifier.
A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the machine readable code is formed by bleaching the fluorescence of a constituent of each particle.
A method as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein defined chemical or biological library members are supported on respective encoded particles prior to removal of the substrate.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.