Manipulation of biosamples and microparticles using optical images on polymer devices

This paper presents a new method using a polymermaterial to generate optically-induced dielectrophoretic (ODEP) forces for particle manipulation. Instead of using the common material such as amorphous silicon, a polymer (P3HT/PCBM) which has excellent light absorption, was used in this study. Without using delicate and high-temperature thin-film process, the entire fabrication process was performed at room temperature. As a light beam was illuminated onto the polymer surface, electron-hole pairs was generated such that a non-uniform electric field was induced when an AC voltage was applied on the ODEP chip, thus generating an ODEP force. It can be used to manipulate particles for several functions such as concentration, transportation and separation of particles. The concentration of the polymer was found to play an important role on the magnitude of the ODEP force. Experimental data showed that polystyrene beads can be moved around using the developed chip. The maximum ODEP force was experimentally found to be around 35.2 pN. The new material may provide a cost-effective approach for mass-production of the ODEP chips.