Moving pulsed dielectrophoresis

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce a dielectrophoresis (DEP)-based handling method that allows fine 3D manipulation of beads in suspension using a lab on a chip device. The device consists of two layers of linear electrodes on the top and bottom of a microfluidic channel. Each electrode layer has a 53 × 53 donut trap matrix, with traps that are linearly connected into rows along the top, and columns along the bottom of the channel. To address in this matrix a single particle in suspension, we introduce pulsed dielectrophoresis (puDEP) where the AC signal used to induce dielectrophoresis is chopped, such that only beads that are at the intersection of two perpendicular electrodes are constantly polarized. Finally, by combining puDEP and moving dielectrophoresis (mDEP), we introduce a generic application of dielectrophoresis namely moving pulsed dielectrophoresis (mpuDEP) that allows the contactless, micron accuracy, addressable displacement in a 2D array of a single bead in suspension.