physically reducing the column oven dimensions minimizing the mass of the column and maximizing the air or fluid flow around the column or by providing alternative more direct heating recent prior art includes rf heating trough a special doped polyimide coating the invention described herein accomplishes two of these objectives u2014 dimension reduction and providing alternative more direct heating with possible thermal feedback for precise control many rapid temperature program applications utilize relatively short columns of small bore dimensions making the mass reduction less of an issue temperature program in combination with gradient heating of the column may well further reduce the column length mass requirements even at moderate column bore approximately 100 fold length compression is offered by a single helix on a 10 mm mean diameter is possible on 25 mm mean diameter roughly 1 inch a 250 u03bcm bore on 350 u03bcm pitch provides roughly 2 25 m of effective length per centimeter column length such that a common 10 m helical column would occupy a hollow cylinder monolith of roughly 24 5 mm id by 25 5 mm od by 5 cm length u2014 approximately 2 cubic centimeters of silica occupying just over 35 cubic centimeters total space for very compact applications such a cylinder could be flattened to 2 mm thickness by.