THESIS
2014
iii leaves, iv-xix, 156 pages : illustrations ; 30 cm
Abstract
Lab-on-a-chip technology is enabling revolutionary influences on biochemistry and
presents a whole new class of miniaturized analysis systems for chemical and
biological applications. Biomolecular analysis is one of the most promising
applications for such lab-on-a-chip micro/nanofluidic systems. The ability to analyze
biologically-relevant entities on chip, such as DNA and proteins, offers great potential
to outperform conventional clinical diagnostic techniques through many opportunities
including economy of samples and reagents, less reaction waste, short analysis time,
cost effectiveness, high resolving power of separation, compactness and portability,
high throughput, and the ability to multiplex and automate. The glass capillaries or
channels, as the basic elements of mic...[
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Lab-on-a-chip technology is enabling revolutionary influences on biochemistry and
presents a whole new class of miniaturized analysis systems for chemical and
biological applications. Biomolecular analysis is one of the most promising
applications for such lab-on-a-chip micro/nanofluidic systems. The ability to analyze
biologically-relevant entities on chip, such as DNA and proteins, offers great potential
to outperform conventional clinical diagnostic techniques through many opportunities
including economy of samples and reagents, less reaction waste, short analysis time,
cost effectiveness, high resolving power of separation, compactness and portability,
high throughput, and the ability to multiplex and automate. The glass capillaries or
channels, as the basic elements of microchemical “laboratories” in micro/nanofluidic
systems, are fabricated with various surface properties, dimensions and structures to
meet the requirements and provide adequate environments of biomolecule transport,
enrichment, separation and detection.
In this thesis, we propose two novel micromachined platforms involving cylindrical
glass micro/nanocapillaries to serve crucial roles in the various stages of biomolecular
analysis. One platform is microchannel plate (MCP), which involves a high-porosity
glass membrane with millions of high-aspect ratio identical capillaries that are closely
packed through glass fiber drawing process. The second platform involves
self-enclosed cylindrical glass capillaries monolithically integrated on silicon through
a lithography-based process in plane with rectangular microchannels. The round
capillaries are achieved through thermal reflow of a glass layer in microstructured
trenches where slender voids are molded into cylindrical tubes. The utility of these
platforms for transport, enrichment, separation and detection of biomolecules is
explored and demonstrated. Leveraging on these platforms, a number of novel devices
are implemented here and present notable progress beyond the existing state of the art,
addressing particular issues in bioanalysis stages such as biomolecule enrichment,
high performance chip-based capillary electrophoresis and liquid chromatography
separation, and detection.
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