Small Particles’s Manipulation by Using Eletric Field

Small particle’s manipulation is one of the important problems in micro-technology. It has many advantages to apply AC electric field for the manipulation of small particles. With the using of forces generated by an electric field, it is possible to create very compact devices for the particle handling. Since no moving machine parts are involved, it could be reduced the overall energy consumption. It is expected the described approach will lead to new applications in many fields: such as part feeders and manipulators for micro electric mechanical system (MEMS). The manipulation devices could be divided into three main structure types: panel, tube and dot type. These three basic types could be further transformed into many other forms, especially for the tube type. In this paper it is shown some experiments, which have been done to obtain the transportation characters of the modified, improved manipulation device of tube type. As the accurate placement of the small particles is very important, a new solution idea is proposed.