title: Enhanced electrophoretic DNA separation in photonic crystal fiber.
abstract: Joule heating generated by the electrical current in capillary electrophoresis leads to a temperature gradient along the separation channel and consequently affects the separation quality. We describe a method of reducing the Joule heating effect by incorporating photonic crystal fiber into a micro capillary electrophoresis chip. The photonic crystal fiber consists of a bundle of extremely narrow hollow channels, which ideally work as separation columns. Electrophoretic separation of DNA fragments was simultaneously but independently carried out in 54 narrow capillaries with a diameter of 3.7 microm each. The capillary bundle offers more efficient heat dissipation owing to the high surface-to-volume ratio. Under the same electrical field strength, notable improvement in resolution was obtained in the capillary bundle chip.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, 1 Nanyang Walk, Singapore, 637616, Singapore.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: Nam-Trung
authors.initials: NT
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.forename: Yien Chian
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Kwok
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization; D004247:DNA / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D046209:Electrophoresis, Microchip / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D055620:Optical Phenomena
chemical_list: D004247:DNA