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Updated: Aug 8, 2026

Electric Cell-substrate Impedance Sensing for the Quantification of Endothelial Proliferation, Barrier Function, and Motility
Published on: March 28, 2014
Electric cell-substrate impedance sensing with screen printed electrode structures
Martin Brischwein1, Sigrun Herrmann, Winfried Vonau
1Heinz Nixdorf-Lehrstuhl für Medizinische Elektronik der Technischen Universität München, Theresienstrasse 90/N3, 80333 Munich, Germany. brischwein@tum.de
Abstract:
Impedance sensors in thick film technology have been tested as a tool for electric cell-substrate impedance sensing. The screen printed Pt electrodes have a width of 250-400 microm. Electrodes and the surrounding ceramic chip substrate could be homogeneously grown with L-929 and Hela cells. The performance of a screen printed interdigitated electrode structure (IDES) was compared with that of thin film structures with the same layout geometry. The thick film impedance sensors allowed to correctly record the morphological response of confluent Hela cell layers to stimulation with histamine. A thick film conductivity sensor also revealed impedance values which were dependent on cell growth on the electrode surface, even at a very low frequency range of approximately 1 Hz.

