Adaptive temperature estimation in 3D single-cell dielectrophoretic traps using the boundary Element Method


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Application of dielectrophoresis techniques to biological particles is limited by the temperature increase of the suspension due to Joule heating. This temperature increase can be obtained from a Poisson equation, but the presence of the source term introduces a volume integral in the equations of the Boundary Element Method (BEM). The method presented in this paper reduces calculation times by as much as an order of magnitude with respect to direct evaluation of the integral in a homogeneous mesh. This time saving is obtained by doing an adaptive evaluation of the volume integral, where the adapted mesh is found from an auxiliary integral which involves only the source term, in order to obtain a single mesh that is near optimal for the system of discretized equation. This method is highly efficient for problems where the source term in Poisson’s equation is highly non-homogeneous, and has the advantages of being straightforward to implement in existing BEM codes and of requiring neither initial knowledge of the spatial variation of the source term nor its derivatives. Results for the calculation of the average temperature increase in a single-cell dielectrophoretic trap are shown to illustrate the advantages of method.

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Journal: TechConnect Briefs
Volume: 3, Technical Proceedings of the 2006 NSTI Nanotechnology Conference and Trade Show, Volume 3
Published: May 7, 2006
Pages: 534 - 537
Industry sector: Sensors, MEMS, Electronics
Topic: Informatics, Modeling & Simulation
ISBN: 0-9767985-8-1