Implementation of flexible virtual microchannels based on optically induced dielectrophoresis

Micro-nano particle manipulation methods in liquid environments have been widely used in the fields such as medicine, biology and material science. Nevertheless, the methods usually rely on pre-prepared physical microfluidic channels. In this work, virtual electrodes based on the optically induced dielectrophoresis (ODEP) method were used as virtual microchannels instead of traditional physical microfluidic channels. Virtual microchannels with different shapes were implemented by the designs of projected light patterns, which made the virtual microchannels have great flexibility and controllability. The theory of ODEP was verified by simulation and analysis of electric field distributions. The relationship between the manipulation force and the alternating current (AC) voltage or the AC frequency exerted on the cells was assessed. The experimental results indicated that the manipulation force was increased with the increase of the AC voltage, and it was reduced with the increase of the AC frequency. Moreover, different virtual microchannels were designed to carry out the transportation, aggregation and sorting of yeast cells and rat basophilic leukemia cells (RBL-2H3 cells) and the survival rate of the cells was evaluated. This work shows that the virtual microchannels can be flexibly realized by ODEP in liquid environments.