Contactless characterization of yeast cell cultivation at 7 GHz and 240 GHz

Experimental results of contactless and label-free characterization techniques of cell cultivation are presented. The two demonstrated approaches are compared at two frequencies, 7 GHz and 240 GHz in terms of sensitivity and applicability. At 7 GHz, measurements have been performed using a rat-race based characterizing system. Furthermore, the sensitivity of spectroscopy measurements at 240 GHz has been compared for two extracted parameters: phase and amplitude. The conducted experiments demonstrate that by selecting the proper characterization parameter, the presented techniques are suitable for cell cultivation monitoring in a pipe based microfluidic system with PTFE tubes. Especially, the use of higher frequencies enables a higher compactness.