Electrochemical Characterisation and Application of Multi Microelectrode Array Devices to Biological Electrochemistry.docVIP

Sensors 2001, 1, 18-28 sensors ISSN 1424-8220 ? 2001 by MDPI /sensors Electrochemical Characterisation and Application of Multi Microelectrode Array Devices to Biological Electrochemistry Michael Kudera1, H. Allen O. Hill1,*, Peter J. Dobson2, Peter A. Leigh2 and William S. McIntire3 1 Inorganic Chemistry Laboratory, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QR, U.K. 2 Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PJ, U.K. 3 Molecular Biology Division, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center, San Francisco, CA 94121, U.S.A. and Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Department of Anesthesia, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, U.S.A. *Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel/Fax: + 44-1865-275900. E-mail: allen.hill@chemistry.oxford.ac.uk. Received: 29 May 2001 / Accepted: 14 June 2001 / Published: 20 June 2001 Abstract: A new design for microelectrode array (MEA) devices fabricated by semiconductor-processing techniques is presented. The microelectrode surfaces consist of gold and are surrounded by an insulating silicon nitride layer. Each chip of these so-called Multi MEAs contains regular arrays with circular-shaped electrodes of eight different sizes: 1, 3, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500 and 1000μm. The Multi MEAs were electrochemically characterised by use of ferrocenecarboxylic acid. Well-defined cyclic voltammograms of the two small redox proteins, horse heart cytochrome c and amicyanin from Thiobacillus versutus, were obtained at variously surface-modified Multi MEAs. Furthermore, a very simple method to manufacture Multi MEAs with carbon surfaces is introduced. Keywords: Microelectrode array, bioelectrochemical sensor, direct protein electrochemistry, cytochrome c, amicyanin  Sensors 2001, 1 19 Introduction Microelectrodes offer a number of substantial advantages over