Formation of high-resistance supported lipid bilayer on the surface of a silicon substrate with microelectrodes

We have developed two basic technologies for fabrication of supported planar lipid bilayer membrane ion channel biosensors: a defect-free lipid bilayer formation on the substrate surface with electrode pores and a patterning technique for the hydrophobic self-assembled-monolayer to form the guard ring that reduces the lipid bilayer edge-leak current. The importance of the supported-membrane structure to achieve low noise and high-speed performance is suggested on the basis of the observed relation between the single-ion-channel current noise and the pore size.