Design and fabrication a microfluidic device for fetal cells dielectrophoretic properties characterization

Abstract

The present work presents a microfluidic device with interdigitated microelectrode and microchannel for fetal nucleated red blood cell dielectrophoresis properties characterization using crossover frequency method. To obtain the electric field and its gradient along the microchannel, simulation study was done by using MAXWELL software. Results show maximum electric field and gradient are obtained near the electrode edge and they are affected by electrode width and the electrode gap. The crossover frequency should be obtained by keeping the cell moving near the electrode edge. The device has been successfully used in fetal cell characterization with better than 1KHz frequency repeatability, which is about 2% of the measured crossover frequency. © 2006 IOP Publishing Ltd.