Features
Several advantages are achieved by using silicon as the material for the well walls. Probably the most important one is the precision with which the array may be manufactured. This enables us to make wells small enough to be suitable for single cell culture. The wells in the standard versions of the Picovitro plates leaves plenty of room for a single cell to grow and proliferate but the manufacturing method allows to make the wells even smaller, the same size as a single cell or even a bacteria. Another advantage with silicon is that its crystal structure renders the whole plate flat so that refocusing is not necessary when using an array scanner or an automated microscopy system which is often the case with plastic microwell plates.
The semipermeable membrane is made of silicone. When applied to the plate after addition of cells it prohibits evaporation and facilitates gas exchange. It is fundamental to avoid evaporation for being able to culture cells in the small volumes of the Picovitro plate wells.