New approach to writing and simultaneous reading of micropatterns: combining surface plasmon resonance imaging with scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM).

This work establishes the compatibility of surface plasmon resonance imaging (SPR-i) with the visualization of localized electropolymerization. The "writing" of polypyrrole and polypyrrole-oligonucleotide patterns onto thin gold films is demonstrated using scanning electrochemical microcopy (SECM), while an optical method, SPR-i, simultaneously detected the formed micropatterns. The combination of these two methods, SECM/SPR-i, has the advantage of not only controlling the patterning process but also providing unique information on the micropattern formation. The influence of the pulsing time and the monomer concentration on the spot size and its characteristics has been investigated in detail using SPR-i. Fluorescence microscopy and atomic force microscopy have also been used to support the data obtained by SPR-i. Copyright 2004 American Chemical Society