Statistical design of a 3D microarray with position-encoded microspheres

We propose a three-dimensional (3D) microarray device with fixed distance between the microspheres. The microspheres in the new device have controllable positions. To design the layout of our proposed device, we consider an optimal statistical performance analysis for imaging the microspheres. We compute the posterior Crame¿r-Rao bound on the error in estimating the unknown imaging parameters and use the bound to compute the minimal distance between the microspheres, which provides a desired level of statistical imaging performance. We illustrate our concept using a numerical example. The proposed microarray has high sensitivity, efficient packing density, and guaranteed imaging performance. It identifies targets based on the microspheres´ locations, allowing significantly simplified imaging analysis.