Some Commonly Neglected Issues Which Affect DEP Applications

G. Zhang[1], V. Pandian[1], J. Brcka[2], J. Faguet[2], E. Lee[2]
[1]Clemson University, Clemson, SC, USA
[2]TEL U.S. Holdings, Inc., U.S. Technology Development Center, Austin, TX, USA
发布日期 2013

Dielectrophoresis (or DEP) has been exploited for various micro and nano fluidics applications like patterning, sorting and separation. However, there are several commonly neglected issues in quantifying DEP forces. Such negligence could potentially lead to wrong DEP force predictions and estimates, posing difficulties in correlating experimental observations with theories. Among the commonly neglect issues, the effect of the radius of a particle on its conductivity is often ignored. This work demonstrates that neglecting these issues discussed above may lead to wrong predictions and estimates in DEP force calculation. For many practical applications using DEP forces, it is necessary to reevaluate the actual situations.