Stretchable Dielectrophoresis(s-DEP) Technology And Its Research In Bio-particles Manipulation Technology

Isolation and manipulation technology of bio-particles have a very important application in biopharmaceutical technology, disease prevention, clinical care, environmental monitoring and so on. Dielectrophoresis(DEP) as a method for manipulating micro-particles technique have been extensively studied in the past two decades due to its non-invasive and label-free characteristic. However, there also some drawbacks need to be solved in dielectrophoresis research, and the mainly question is that different structure electrode should be designed in isolation and manipulation different property micro-particles when needed. This dilemma makes the production process of dielectrophoresis chip complex. In order to solve this deficiency of dielectrophoretic technique in the application, stretchable dielectrophoretic(s-DEP) concept has been proposed in our study, which aiming at changing the shape of electrode structure through mechanical stretching. Thus, dielectrophoretic manipulation technique can be used in more universal occasion.Stretchable dielectrophoretic(s-DEP) is the techniques that utilize micro-electrical-mechanical system(MEMS) processing, sputter Ti / Au metal film electrode on flexible substrate material poly-dimethylsiloxane(PDMS) in particular sputtering condition to forming stretchable micro-crack electrode in stretching process. The electrode can keep good tensile property(coaxial tensile rate up to 120%) and electrical conduction property(electrical impedance almost 40k? with the electrode length/wide/thickness of 15mm/2mm/50 nm in corresponding coaxial tensile rate at 100%) under stretching with the electrode shape and size changing. The changing electrode structure meet dielectrophoretic manipulation conditions under different conditions in order to achieve different physical characteristics(size, shape, permittivity, conductivity) of the micro-particles separation and manipulation.In this article we described the basic principle of dielectrophoresis, then presented the calculation of dielectrophoresis force and the basic knowledge of stretchable dielectrophoresis technical: flexible electrodes and stretchable micro-cracks electrode. Then the stretchable dielectrophoresis chip manufacture processes is described briefly, and the numerical simulation of the electric field is done on the stretchable dielectrophoresis chip during stretching and the force analysis of the micro-particles of multi-physics field simulation is also discussed detailed with COMSOL Multiphysics software. Finally, this article highlighted the isolation and transportation technology of polystyrene particles, silica particles and Jurkat cell on stretchable dielectrophoresis chips, and discussed the stretchable dielectrophoresis chip electrodes tensile rate versus separation and transportation efficiency. In the end of the article, we summary the problems that exist in our stretchable dielectrophoresis technique and preview the future applications and development prospects, hoping that stretchable dielectrophoresis technology can actually bloom radiance in our lives.