Microchip electrophoresis with sample stacking

A fused quartz microchip with a serpentine column geometry is fabricated to perform rapid microchip electrophoresis of dansylated amino acids. A 67 mm separation column is constructed in a 7 x 10 mm area on a quartz substrate using standard photolithographic, etching and deposition techniques. Buffer and sample flows within the channel manifold are precisely controlled through potentials applied to the reservoirs. To enhance the detection limits, a stacking injection technique is used to concentrate the sample at the inlet of the separation column. The stacked injections exhibit high reproducibility (2.1% relative standard deviation in peak area). Using a separation length of 67 mm and a separation field strength of 1100 V/cm, separations are performed in < or = 15 s generating approximately 40,000 theoretical plates.