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Masao WASHIZU Seiichi SUZUKI Osamu KUROSAWA Hideaki KURAHASHI Akira KATOH
A black membrane is a biological-membrane analogue, i.e. a phospholipid bilayer membrane, artificially formed on an orifice immersed in water. It is used to investigate the properties of the membrane itself and channels embedded therein. In this paper, microfabrication techniques are applied to fabricate the orifice, and a glass substrate is isotropically etched to define the orifice geometry. The periphery of the orifice was patterned with aminosilane to anchor the membrane. The remainder part was coated with fluorosilane to make the surface hydrophobic and to prevent adsorption of channel-forming molecules. We demonstrated experimentally that a stable and reproducible membrane is easily obtainable using the orifice.