A novel magnetic encoding technique for performing high-throughput biological assays using molecular probes such as antibodies and DNA oligonucleotides is presented. Electrodeposited Ni/Au multilayer pillar structures with diameters from 5-20 mu m and thicknesses from 1-10 mu m are presented as "magnetic barcodes," where the number of unique codes possible increases exponentially with a linear increase in pillar size. We have successfully functionalized these pillars using a HS-C-10-NHS self-assembled monolayer (SAM) grown on the An cap layer and attachment of an NH2 modified primer oligo sequence and have shown hybridization and denaturation to a fluorescent template. In addition we have developed a novel release layer methodology that allows a large library of probes to be inkjet printed on a single 5 mm(2) chip prior to release.