Calcul de la force diélectrophorétique dans les microsystèmes biologiques: comparaison du modèle dipolaire avec le modèle du tenseur de Maxwell

The validity of the point-dipole approach, frequently used to estimate the dielectrophoretic force applied upon biological cells in microsystems, is examined. Forces given by this approach are compared to those obtained by the Maxwell stress tensor method. In a needle-plate electrode configuration, results provided by finite element method show that the point-dipole approach is unsatisfactory when cells size is comparable to the gap distance. When subjected to a uniform electric field, cell-to-cell interaction is studied. In that case, the point-dipole approach is very accurate provided that cell-to-cell distance is larger than their radius R