UHF dielectrophoretic handling of individual biological cells using BiCMOS microfluidic RF-sensors

This paper introduces the handling of a single cell by dielectrophoresis technics using UHF frequencies (above 100 MHz) inside microfluidic microsystems implemented on Bipolar-Complementary Oxide Semiconductor (BiCMOS) technology. Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is a well-established technique used in the kHz frequency range to manipulate, trap and sort electrically polarized cells by exposing them to a non-uniform electric field. The novelty of this work consists in exploring the capability of UHF signals to manipulate, trap and discriminate cells based on their intracellular dielectric properties. Actually the study of their dielectrophoretic behavior in such frequency band appears a very attractive method for cell electrical characterization and further label free sorting purpose. As proof of concept, we demonstrate here the contact less UHF-DEP handling of colon cancer cells flowing in microfluidic channel with frequencies above 100 MHz. The first reported results show the capability of the proposed device to identify the higher cross over frequencies of cells related to their own intracellular specificities.