Self-patterned gold electroplated multicapillary separation columns

This paper reports on a method for self-patterned electroplating to selectively deposit gold on vertical surfaces of microfabricated silicon structures. This method was developed out of the effort to realize microfabricated multicapillary columns (μMCC) for chromatographic separation aimed for handheld chemical analysis. Results showed the successful selective vertical wall electroplating of μMCCs comprising an unprecedented number of channels (8 and 16). The μMCCs were functionalized using self-assembly of thiol groups and evaluated for their chromatographic performance. μMCCs demonstrated high separation efficiency as indicated by the 6500/m theoretical plate number and proved to have high sample capacities, which increases with the number of capillaries operating in parallel in these MEMS columns.