Glass microchannel technology for capillary electrophoresis

Abstract

The fabrication process of glass chips for capillary electrophoresis by means of micromachining is reported. The device is made up of two glass substrates joined by means of thermal fusion bonding. Selective wet etchings were used to define five microchannels, four for samples injection and one for the separation, while the access holes were obtained with diamond drills. The fabrication process required only one photolithographic step and the thermal fusion bonding did not reduce the uniformity and integrity of the channels. Good results in terms of microchannels shape definition, repeatability and glass surface quality have been obtained.

Keywords:

• μ-Systems
• Capillary electrophoresis
• μ-Fluidics
• Glass micromachining

Acknowledgement

This research is financially supported by the project FIRB ‘Microsystems for Genetic Diagnostics’.