3.1 Electric Field Distribution in the Simulation
To predict the distribution of \(\nabla E^{2}\)in the microfluidic channel, we developed a 3-dimensional (3D) model of the microfluidic device using COMSOL Multuphysics 5.6. We applied 3 Vpp(200 kHz) electric potential between two fingers of gold electrodes.Figure 3 exhibited that the magnitude of the \(\nabla E^{2}\)was the weakest at the top surface (~ 0 V2/m3) and the strongest (~ 2x1014V2/m3) at the bottom surface of the microfluidic chip. When the \(\nabla E^{2}\) was calculated at the cross-section of the microfluidic chip, the edges of the gold electrodes exhibited an electric field gradient ranging from ~ 2x1014 V2/m3 to ~ 0.4x1014 V2/m3electric field gradient. We thus expected to observe pDEP-trapping of the cells at the edges of the electrodes. The weakest electric field strength occurred at the center of the electrode and in the middle of the SiO2/Si channel.