Simulation and performance analysis of a novel high-accuracy sheathless microfluidic impedance cytometer with coplanar electrode layout

Abstract

The performance of a novel microfluidic impedance cytometer (MIC) with coplanar configuration is investigated in silico. The main feature of the device is the ability to provide accurate particle-sizing despite the well-known measurement sensitivity to particle trajectory. The working principle of the device is presented and validated by means of an original virtual laboratory providing close-to-experimental synthetic data streams. It is shown that a metric correlating with particle trajectory can be extracted from the signal traces and used to compensate the trajectory-induced error in the estimated particle size, thus reaching high-accuracy. An analysis of relevant parameters of the experimental setup is also presented.