With the growing popularity and application of microfabricated devices in oral drug delivery (ODD), masking technologies for drug loading and surface modification become highly relevant. Considering the speed of design and fabrication processes and the necessity for continuous alterations of e.g. the shape and sizes of the devices during the optimization process, there is a need for adaptable, precise and low-cost masking techniques. Here, a novel method is presented for masking ODD microdevices, namely microcontainers, using the physical characteristics of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). When compared to a rigid microfabricated shadow mask, used for filling drugs in microcontainers, the PDMS masking technique allows more facile and precise loading of higher quantities of an active compound, without the need of alignment. The method provides flexibility and is adjustable to devices fabricated from different materials with various geometries, topologies and dimensions. This user-friendly flexible masking method overcomes the limitations of other masking techniques and is certainly not limited to ODD and is recommended for a wide range of microdevices.

中文翻译：

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微型口服药物输送装置基于PDMS的掩膜方法的开发和表征。

随着微型设备在口服药物递送（ODD）中的日益普及和应用，用于药物装载和表面修饰的掩膜技术变得越来越重要。考虑到设计和制造过程的速度以及在优化过程中连续改变例如器件的形状和尺寸的必要性，需要适应性，精确和低成本的掩膜技术。在这里，提出了一种利用聚二甲基硅氧烷（PDMS）的物理特性掩盖ODD微器件（即微容器）的新颖方法。与用于在微容器中填充药物的刚性微细制造荫罩相比，PDMS掩膜技术可以更轻松，更精确地装载大量的活性化合物，而无需对齐。该方法提供了灵活性，并且对于由具有各种几何形状，拓扑和尺寸的不同材料制成的设备是可调整的。这种用户友好的灵活掩膜方法克服了其他掩膜技术的局限性，并且不限于ODD，建议将其用于各种微器件。