The microcasting technique for the fabrication of microstructures mainly involves two consecutive steps, namely, the capillary-driven flow of nanoparticulate slurry in micromolds and sintering of the resulting preform. During the mold-filling step, particle settling leads to a spatial particle distribution in the preform, which affects the subsequent sintering kinetics, and in turn, and causes a shape distortion in the final sintered product. This paper presents a comprehensive theoretical model which is adopted to account for the capillary-driven flow and simultaneous particle settling behavior during the filling step. Numerical simulations are performed over a wide range of parameters to illustrate the effects of four nondimensional groups on the fill time and particle distribution, and to develop design windows, which may serve as guidelines in the design of particle properties, slurry composition, and mold dimensions to maintain a desired level of homogeneity in particle distribution. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.