| Abstract
| - An experimental proof of principle is presented for thepossibility to use a shear force field to generate a stable,chromatography enabling fluid flow through micrometerand submicrometer channels without the need for apressure or a voltage gradient. In our setup, we were ableto successfully move a color tracer plug at speeds exceeding 2 cm/s through a 0.125-μm-thick and 4-mm-widechannel, without creating a pressure drop or a pressurebuildup. By showing that the speed of microchannel flowscan be drastically increased by simply switching from onedriving force to another, the presented experiments openthe road to the development of a new type of chromatography, referred to as shear-driven chromatography, potentially offering unprecedented separation speeds andresolutions and complying perfectly with the present trendtoward the miniaturization and parallelization of analyticalseparation equipment.
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