PLANAR QUARTZ CHIPS WITH SUBMICRON CHANNELS FOR 2-DIMENSIONAL CAPILLARY ELECTROPHORESIS APPLICATIONS

We have fabricated a planar chip on a fused quartz substrate with a tw o-dimensional channel array for capillary electrophoresis applications . The first separation dimension consists of a single channel 16 mm lo ng, 80 mu m wide and 3-7 mu m deep; the second separation dimension of an array of 500 channels, 5 mm long, 900 nm wide and 3-6 mu m deep. T he channels were fabricated using reactive ion etching under maximum a nisotropic etching conditions, yielding an aspect ratio of up to 5 for the narrow channels. The microchannels were closed using a novel NaOH assisted bonding technique.