Numerical and experimental characterization of 3-phase rectification of nanobead dielectrophoretic transport exploiting Brownian motion

We report on a transport system for nanobeads that exploits Brownian motion as the main actuation source, saving energy compared to a purely electrostatic transport system of the same geometry. The transport system employs a microfluidic channel to restrict Brownian motion of the nanobeads to only one dimension and a 3-phase dielectrophoretic flashing ratchet to bias the spatial probability distribution into the rectification direction for one-dimensional transport. A numerical model of the system is developed and applied to investigate its performance. A micromachined transport system is fabricated and employed to experimentally validate the model with the confirmation of the optimal operation point. Numerical model and experiments have shown good agreement.