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 tobias 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. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.