Design and optimization of on‐chip capillary electrophoresis

We present a systematic, experimentally validated method of designing electrokinetic injections for on‐chip capillary electrophoresis applications. This method can be used to predict point‐wise and charge‐coupled device (CCD)‐imaged electropherograms using estimates of species mobilities, diffusivities and initial sample plug parameters. A simple Taylor dispersion model is used to characterize electrophoretic separations in terms of resolution and signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR). Detection convolutions using Gaussian and Boxcar detector response functions are used to relate optimal conditions for resolution and signal as a function of relevant system parameters including electroosmotic mobility, sample injection length, detector length scale, and the length‐to‐detector. Analytical solutions show a tradeoff between signal‐to‐noise ratio and resolution with respect to dimensionless injection width and length to the detector. In contrast, there is no tradeoff with respect to the Peclet number as increases in Peclet number favor both SNR and separation solution (R). We validate our model with quantitative epifluorescence visualizations of electrophoretic separation experiments in a simple cross channel microchip. For the pure advection regime of dispersion, we use numerical simulations of the transient convective diffusion processes associated with electrokinetics together with an optimization algorithm to design a voltage control scheme which produces an injection plug that has minimal advective dispersion. We also validate this optimal injection scheme using fluorescence visualizations. These validations show that optimized voltage scheme produces injections with a standard deviation less than one‐fifth of the width of the microchannel.