Abstract
We investigate the effect of curvature of the tip and the convexity of an electrode on the localization of suspended particles under the combined effect of dielectrophoresis and AC electroosmosis through simulations using COMSOL Multiphysics. A systematic analysis of the parameters defining the convexity of the electrode—the radius of the tip and the apex angle shows that suspended particles can be trapped closely to the electrode edges for comparatively larger tip radii and apex angles. This in turn should favour the trapping of polarizable molecules between the electrodes only if the fluid velocities at the vortices are not very strong.
Highlights
The manipulation of polarizable biomolecules like DNA by electrical forces in microdevices has become a topic of increasing interest as it finds wide-spread applications in lab-on-a-chip technology or in DNA diagnostics [1]
It clearly revealed that electric field strength which was extremely large at the vertices of the triangular electrode, coupled with polarization properties, played an important role in guiding the flow of DNA molecules in and around the tips
We use a particle size of R = 4 μm to study the feasibility of polarized and stretched DNA molecules forming a bridge across electrodes
Summary
The manipulation of polarizable biomolecules like DNA by electrical forces in microdevices has become a topic of increasing interest as it finds wide-spread applications in lab-on-a-chip technology or in DNA diagnostics [1]. A DNA molecule in an electrolytic solution will develop a strong electric dipole moment [2] This induced dipole allows trapping and manipulation of the molecule when placed within micro-electrodes owing to a process known as dielectrophoresis (DEP) [3] [4]. Similar interdigitated rectangular metal microelectrodes of different dimensions and gap lengths were later investigated, both experimentally and numerically, by several researchers [9] in order to understand movement of DNA molecules within microelectrodes under electrokinetic effects From these studies it appears that one might further exploit state-of-art lithographic technique to fabricate smaller electrodes with sharper bends which would intensify the non-uniformity of electric field and significantly influence DNA manipulation. We have tried to assess how the convexity of the electrodes could influence the localization process
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