We present a quantitative analysis on the response of a dilute active suspension of self-propelled rods (swimmers) in a planar channel subjected to an imposed shear flow. To best capture the salient features of shear-induced effects, we consider the case of an imposed Couette flow, providing a constant shear rate across the channel. We argue that the steady-state behavior of swimmers can be understood in the light of a population splitting phenomenon, occurring as the shear rate exceeds a certain threshold, initiating the reversal of swimming direction for a finite fraction of swimmers from down-to upstream or vice versa, depending on swimmer position within the channel. Swimmers thus split into two distinct, statistically significant and oppositely swimming majority and minority populations. The onset of population splitting translates into a transition from a self-propulsiondominated regime to a shear-dominated regime, corresponding to a unimodal-to-bimodal change in the probability distribution function of the swimmer orientation. We present a phase diagram in terms of the swim and flow Péclet numbers showing the separation of these two regimes by a discontinuous transition line. Our results shed further light on the behavior of swimmers in a shear flow and provide an explanation for the previously reported non-monotonic behavior of the mean, near-wall, parallel-to-flow orientation of swimmers with increasing shear strength.

Continuous separation of colloidal particles using dielectrophoresisDielectrophoresis is the movement of particles in nonuniform electric fields and has been of interest for application to manipulation and separation at and below the microscale. This technique has the advantages of being noninvasive, nondestructive, and noncontact, with the movement of particle achieved by means of electric fields generated by miniaturized electrodes and microfluidic systems. Although the majority of applications have been above the microscale, there is increasing interest in application to colloidal particles around a micron and smaller. This paper begins with a review of colloidal and nanoscale dielectrophoresis with specific attention paid to separation applications. An innovative design of integrated microelectrode array and its application to flow-through, continuous separation of colloidal particles is then presented. The details of the angled chevron microelectrode array and the test microfluidic system are then discussed. The variation in device operation with applied signal voltage is presented and discussed in terms of separation efficiency, demonstrating 99.9% separation of a mixture of colloidal latex spheres. Keywords:Colloidal / Dielectrophoresis / Separation DOI 10.1002/elps.2012004661 Introduction GeneralDielectrophoresis (DEP) is the motion arising from the interaction of nonuniform electric fields and the induced electrical dipole in polarizable particles [1][2][3][4][5]. The standard electrical technique of electrophoretic separation works when suspended charged particles migrate under the influence of applied electric field. DEP has distinct advantages over this technique in that it can separate neutral particles as well, allowing the separation of particles without having to physiologically alter them; which gives minimum particle handling and no damage. DEP also typically uses microfabricated electrodes to generate highly nonuniform electric fields, which allows it to be performed locally, whereas electrophoretic separation is generally a long-range effect acting between two large external electrodes. Due to the requirements for microfabrication, the localized nature of DEP, and the rapid growth of microfluidic Labon-a-Chip systems or TAS in the past two decades in both research and commercial sectors [6][7][8], there has been a recent growth in the application of DEP to these areas. The first practical application of Lab-on-a-Chip was in fact on-chip CE [9] and with recent advances in the synthesis and the charCorrespondence: Dr. Nicolas Green, Nano Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK E-mail: ng2@ecs.soton.ac.uk Fax: +44-2380593029 acterization of size-selected particles in the submicron and nanometer (colloidal) range, an investigation of their physical and chemical properties is now possible [10]. The capability to produce small scale devices allows the development of entirely novel experiments and chip-based analytical system...

Higher-order terms of dielectrophoretic (DEP) force are commonly ignored by invoking the simplifying dipole approximation. Concurrently, the trend towards micro- and nano-electrode structures in DEP design is bringing about an increasing number of instances where the approximation is expected to lose reliability. The case is severe for nonspherical particles (the shape of many biological particles) due to the shape-dependent nature of dielectric polarization. However, there is a lack of analytical means to determine multipole moments of nonspherical particles, numerical calculations of the same are regarded as unreliable, and there is a prevalence for higher-order force considerations to be ignored. As a result, the dipole approximation is used and/or nonspherical particles are approximated as spheres. This work proves the inefficacy of current qualitative criteria for the reliability of the dipole approximation and presents a quantitative substitute, with verified accuracy, that enables precise determination of the extent to which the dipole approximation would be reliable, and if found unreliable, corrects the approximation by adding second- and third-order terms of the DEP force. The effects of field nonuniformity, electrode design, and particle shape and aspect ratio on the significance of higher-order DEP forces is quantitatively analyzed. The results show that higher-order DEP forces are indeed of substantially increased significance for nonspherical particles; in the cases examined in this work, multipolar terms are seen to constitute more than 40% of the total force on ellipsoidal and cylindrical particles. It is further shown that approximating nonspherical particles as spheres of similar dimensions is subject to substantial error. Last, the substantial importance of the electrode design in influencing higher-order forces is shown.

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We use a continuum model to report on the behavior of a dilute suspension of chiral swimmers subject to externally imposed shear in a planar channel. Swimmer orientation in response to the imposed shear can be characterized by two distinct phases of behavior, corresponding to unimodal or bimodal distribution functions for swimmer orientation along the channel. These phases indicate the occurrence (or not) of a population splitting phenomenon changing the swimming direction of a macroscopic fraction of active particles to the exact opposite of that dictated by the imposed flow. We present a detailed quantitative analysis elucidating the complexities added to the population splitting behavior of swimmers when they are chiral. In particular, the transition from unimodal to bimodal and vice versa are shown to display a re-entrant behavior across the parameter space spanned by varying the chiral angular speed. We also present the notable effects of particle aspect ratio and self-propulsion speed on system phase behavior and discuss potential implications of our results in applications such as swimmer separation/sorting.