Fabrication of a glass-implemented microcapillary electrophoresis device with integrated contactless conductivity detection

Glass microdevices for capillary electrophoresis (CE) gained a lot of interest in the development of micrototal analysis systems (μTAS). The fabrication of a μJAS requires integration of sampling, chemical separation and detection systems into a microdevice. The integration of a detection system into a microchannel, however, is hampered by the lack of suitable microfabrication technology. Here, a microfabrication method for integration of insulated microelectrodes inside a leakage-free microchannel in glass is presented. A combination of newly developed technological approaches, such as low-temperature glass-to-glass anodic bonding, channel etching, fabrication of buried metal interconnects, and deposition of thin plasma-enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) silicon carbide layers, enables the fabrication of a CE microdevice with an integrated contactless conductivity detector. The fabrication method of this CE microdevice with integrated contactless conductivity detector is described in detail. Standard CE separations of three inorganic cations in concentrations down to 5 μm show the viability of the new μCE system.