Light-induced local heating for thermophoretic manipulation of DNA in polymer micro- and nanochannels.

We present a method for making polymer chips with a narrow-band near-infrared absorber layer that enables light-induced local heating of liquids inside fluidic micro- and nanochannels fabricated by thermal imprint in polymethyl methacrylate. We have characterized the resulting liquid temperature profiles in microchannels using the temperature dependent fluorescence of the complex Ru(bpy)(3). We demonstrate thermophoretic manipulation of individual YOYO-1 stained T4 DNA molecules inside micro- and nanochannels.