Fabrication and experimental verification of a dielectrophoretic separation device

In this work, we present the fabrication method and the experimental results of a dielectrophoretic (DEP) device for particle batch separation. The curved parts of serpentine microchannel that causes performance deterioration in capillary electrophoresis (CE) due to the plug dispersion are effectively used in our design for dielectrophoretic separation. The top-and-bottom focusing electrodes are employed in the intermediate straight segments to bring all the particles to the same entering point for the next curve. The device was successfully fabricated by bonding two processed substrates with an SU-8 layer sandwiched in between. The experimental results achieved thus far give a proof of concept.