Optical Detectors for Capillary Electrophoresis

After a relatively short period of development, capillary electrophoresis (CE) has become firmly established as a powerful separation tool [ 1 - 6 ]. Among the many reasons for the rapid growth is the availability of user-friendly commercial instruments that derived much of the technology from familiar high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) equipment. This has allowed relatively inexperienced users to reproduce the highly efficient separations that are well beyond the capabilities of HPLC. Except for the unusual phenomenon of electroosmotic flow, CE separations are relatively easy to understand and to manipulate. The favorable environment for biomolecules in water-based solvents naturally points toward bioanalytical applications, which have mushroomed in recent years as chemistry and biology shed their boundaries.