In situ structural analysis with a SAXS laboratory beamline directly in a microfluidic chip
Résumé
Recent advances have been made in coupling microfluidic chips with X-ray equipment enabling structural analysis of samples directly in microfluidic devices.This important step mainly took place on powerful synchrotron facilities because of the need of a beam reduced in size to fit the microfluidic channel dimensions but still intense. In this work, we discuss how improvements of an X-ray laboratory beamline and an optimal design of a microfluidic device allow to obtain reliable structural information without the need of a synchrotron. We evaluate the potential of these new developments by probing several well known dispersions. These include dense inorganic gold and silica nanoparticles that scatter photons quite intensely, the bovine serum albumin (BSA) macromolecule, with more moderate contrast, to highlight possible applications in biology, and latex nanospheres with only weak contrast with the solvent to show the limits of the setup. We established a proof of concept for a versatile setup that will open the way for more complex lab-on-chip devices suitable for in situ and operando structural analysis by small angle X-ray scattering analysis without the necessity of a synchrotron source.
Domaines
Sciences de l'ingénieur [physics]
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)