Review of electrokinetic flows and their applications in BioMEMS sensors

Abstract

BioMEMS integrates various interdisciplinary research domains to facilitate biological detection of analytes on electromechanically integrated microchips. It inherently utilizes electrical supplies to the system to serve the detection in many ways except colorimetric detection. In the context of microchip-based devices, the electric pulses generally serve one of the two primary purposes, either as low-level excitation signal or as a source of analyte manipulation in some manner. Among these effects, the study of the effect of electric pulses on the solution flow causing analyte manipulation is termed as electrokinetics. Depending on the kind of applied signal, there can be alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC) electrokinetics. These effects can be integrated into the detection system through various means. In this context, this review article discusses in detail the utility of integrating electrokinetics in detection, the associated parameters, the various electrokinetics effects, and their applications in biological detection. Some important applications chosen for discussion are particle pre-concentration, particle separation, particle rotation, and gene transformation.