Electrodynamically actuated on-chip flow cytometry with low shear stress for electro-osmosis based sorting using low conductive medium

In the proposed paper, we demonstrate on-chip electrodynamically driven actuator flow cytometry, based on negative dielectrophoretic (nDEP) focus and alternating current electro-osmotic flow (ACEOF) sorting technique. This single chip can perform three different functions such as focusing, transportation of beads/cells to detection site and reloading the unsorted ones with two distinctive phenomena. AC EOF is achieved by the design of the asymmetric electrode pair’s array and nDEP is used to focus the beads/cells in-line. The design, simulation and experimental results of the proposed microchip are reported in this paper. The simulation and experimental results reveal well defined stable region for nDEP and ACEOF driving force. The potential severe shear stress damage caused by the sheath flow in conventional flow cytometry is eliminated. In addition, to explore the influence of conductivity of the medium, we have used low conductive formulated medium with conductivity of 81.4 μS/cm. The voltage and the frequency required to manipulate the particles decreased comparatively with the use of this medium.