A novel approach to dielectrophoresis using carbon electrodes

✍ Scribed by Rodrigo Martinez-Duarte; Philippe Renaud; Marc J. Madou

• Book ID: 102185272
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 333 KB
• Volume: 32
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0173-0835
• DOI: 10.1002/elps.201100059

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Carbon‐electrode dielectrophoresis (carbon‐DEP) is demonstrated here as an alternative to more traditional DEP techniques. Carbon‐DEP combines advantages of metal‐electrode and insulator‐based DEP by using low‐cost fabrication techniques and low voltages for particle manipulation. The use of 3‐D electrodes is proved to yield significant advantages over the use of traditional planar electrodes. This paper details the fabrication of dense arrays of tall high aspect ratio carbon electrodes on a transparent fused‐silica substrate. The shrinkage of the SU‐8 structures during carbonization is characterized and a design tool for future devices is provided. Applications of carbon electrodes in DEP are then detailed and include particle positioning, high‐throughput filtering and cell focusing using positive‐DEP. Manipulated cells include Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Drosophila melanogaster. The advantages and disadvantages of carbon‐DEP are discussed at the end of this work.