6. The future of dielectrophoresis

Having walked through the essential steps involved in the design, fabrication and testing of iDEP disease diagnostic device, a very pertinent question remains: where is this dielectrophoretic analysis heading to? iDEP is currently the choicest dielectrophoretic methodology for bioparticle separation/disease diagnostic purposes. This method could still be classified as being in the teething stage going by the number of research work that are published, especially since 1992. Therefore, iDEP is poised do more than separation and detection of bioparticle. For instance, bioparticle are currently being characterized using electrode-based (AC) dielectrophoresis. iDEP can be used to replace this age-long method through directional etching of glass substrate. This will boost the expansion of AC-DC DEP for simultaneous particle characterization, separation and detection. On glass, groove can be etched systematically and conducting metals, such as copper, can be electrochemically deposited.
