Simulation of traveling wave dielectrophoresis using a meshless method

Manipulation and separation of micron-sized particles, particularly biological particles, using the dielectrophoretic effect is an emerging application in BioMEMS technology. This paper presents a numerical simulation for the four-phase traveling dielectrophoresis (DEP) using a novel meshless method - weighted least square finite difference (LSFD) scheme. The exact boundary condition and nonuniform point distribution were used in the calculation. Numerical results including the electrical potential, electrical field, traveling wave DEP forces and particle behavior are presented. Although the LSFD scheme was originally proposed in solving incompressible viscous flow, it is further demonstrated in this paper that the method is also well suited for solving various DEP problems in which extremely high gradient of electric field exists in the computational domain, e.g. edges of the electrodes. The LSFD method enables the computational ease of free point/mesh distribution in these areas, and hence it is feasible in the modelling of DEP systems.