The microrafts have bases composed of detachable concave elements fabricated by a dip-coating process using a polydimethylsiloxane mold as the template and the array substrate.
This manufacturing approach allows the microrafts to possess low autofluorescence and can therefore be utilized for fluorescence-based identification of cells.
Cells plated on the microarray settle and attach at the center of the wells due to the microrafts’ concavity.
The hard polymer material of the microrafts protect the cells from damage by the needle.
[2][3] Using this system, extremely high single-cell cloning rates of greater than 95% have been achieved.