Analysis of dielectrophoretic electrode arrays for nanoparticle manipulation

A typical microelectrode structure, interdigitated bar electrodes, has been developed for the selective manipulation and separation of nanoparticles using traveling field dielectrophoresis effects under AC electrokinetics. This paper presents meshless numerical solutions of traveling wave dielectrophoresis for such interdigitated electrode array energized with four-phase signal. This meshless method is based on a truncated 2D Taylor series expansion with the first three orders together with a weighted least-square approximation procedure. Dielectrophoretic forces and traveling wave forces are calculated and their applications for nanoparticle manipulation and separation are discussed.