A curved top-wall flow cell for improvement of response consistency in surface plasmon resonance array detection

•A curved top-wall flow cell is proposed to improve the response consistency in SPR array detection.•A universal mathematical relation between the mass transport rate and the flow cell height was established and the optimal flow cell geometry for analyte distribution uniformity was derived.•The actual flow regimes within the novel flow cell were confirmed by micro-PIV experiments and results agreed with expectations.•Goat-anti-rabbit IgG and rabbit IgG interaction experiments were performed on a SPR imaging system using both the novel and conventional flow cells.•The novel flow cell significantly reduced the coefficient of variance of association rate across the sensing surface.