Heavily doped silicon electrode for dielectrophoresis in high conductivity media

Abstract

A hemispherically shaped, heavily doped (N++) silicon electrode is proposed to overcome the challenges of dielectrophoretic (DEP) manipulation using a conventional metal electrode operating in high conductivity media. An N++ electrode decouples the strong electric field region from the electrode interface and provides a large interface capacitance to prevent surface charging in high conductivity media, thereby effectively suppressing electrochemical reactions. Compared to a conventional metal electrode, an N++ electrode can provide 3 times higher threshold voltage and a corresponding 9-fold enhancement of maximum DEP force in 1× phosphate-buffered saline buffer with an electrical conductivity of 1 S/m. Furthermore, an N++ silicon electrode has excellent thermal conductivity and low electrical impedance, ideal for powering massively parallel DEP manipulation in high conductivity media across a large area.