Transport Of Nanoparticles And Reacting Biomolecules In Micro And Nanofluidic Electrokinetic Systems

We find increased hydrodynamic drag in confinement, nanoparticle rotation effects for spherical analytes in sheer flows, non-uniform electro-osmotic velocity profiles, and electrostatic repulsion of thick electric double layers to be important effects on transport. Second, we present an experimental study of electrokinetic separations of short, complementary ss and dsDNA in microchannels. We find different phenomena are significant for the three different DNA lengths in the study (10nt, 20nt, and 50nt). Reaction kinetic effects are significant for the shortest length DNA, where the melting temperature is comparable to room temperature. For longer 20 and 50nt DNA, the melting temperatures are sufficiently high and reaction kinetic effects are constant.