High electric field effects on gigahertz dielectric properties of water measured with microwave microfluidic devices.

Silicon microstrip line devices with 260 nm planar microfluidic channels are fabricated and used to investigate water dielectric saturation effects. Microwave scattering parameter measurements are conducted from 1 to 16 GHz under different uniform dc electric fields. When the applied dc field is increased to approximately 1 MV/cm, the measured transmission coefficient S(21) is increased up to 18 dB, which indicates a large change in water dielectric properties. Extracted water permittivity (epsilon=epsilon'+jepsilon") shows that epsilon' and epsilon" are changed up to 70% and 50%, respectively.