PET-laminated thin-film capillary electrophoresis chips by sandwiching method

In this article, the sandwiching method, a novel, simple, and cost-effective capillary electrophoresis (CE) chip fabrication approach, is proposed. In this new approach, polymer PET-laminated film rather than the commonly used silicon wafer is chosen to be the material of the chip; a micro CNC machining center is adopted to cut the microchannels; and a temperature-controlled roll laminator is used to bond the microchannels in between two sealing PET films. Separation experiments using red Rhodamine B and blue Xylene Cyanole illustrate that the separation efficiency of the sandwiching CE chip is comparable to the semiconductor-based chip and the conventional capillary. However, the sandwiching method requires much less complicated fabrication processes and is more cost-effective.