The Simulation Study of Bio-particle Trapping with Electrodeless Dielectrophoresis

Abstract

The ability to manipulate particles, especially living cells, is fundamental to many biological and medical applications, including isolation and detection of sparse cancer cells, concentration of cells from dilute suspensions, separation of cells according to specific properties, and trapping and positioning of individual cells for characterization. This study is an attempt to research on microfluidic trapping by using dielectrophoresis (DEP) force. The electrodeless dielectrophoretic trapping is composed of conductless tetragon structures in micro-chip. The authors have advanced the design of electrodeless DEP geometries, correlated particle acted by DEP effects with electrical-field distributions determined through computer simulations. The results of this study have a substantial impact on the development of bio-analytical systems using dielectrophoretic forces.