NANOCAPILLARY ARRAY INTERCONNECTS IN MULTILAYER MICROCHIPS FOR TRANSPORT CONTROL BETWEEN DIFFERENT FLUIDIC ENVIRONMENTS

摘要

Nanocapillary array interconnects allow discrete electrokinetic transport between different microchannel fluidic environments in multilayer chip architectures. Fluidic isolation across capillary arrays with 15-nm and 30-nm diameters is investigated by buffer systems of varying ionic strengths and fluorophore content. Whole-channel conductivity measurements and laser-induced fluorescence monitoring demonstrate the minimization of passive diffusion. Appreciable transport between the different salt environments occurs only when the nanocapillary array is electrokinetically biased, providing for sample preparation abilities, such as on-chip desalting, that will aid in optimizing integrated downstream analyses.