The Effect of Different System Parameters on the Movement of Microbial Cells Using Light-Induced Dielectrophoresis.

The manipulation of single particles remains a topic of interest with many applications. Here we characterize the impact of selected parameters on the motion of single particles thanks to dielectrophoresis (DEP) induced by visible light, in a technique called Light-induced Dielectrophoresis, or LiDEP, also known as optoelectronic tweezers, optically induced DEP, and image-based DEP. Baker's yeast and Candida cells are exposed to an electric field gradient enabled by shining a photoconductive material with a specific pattern of visible light, and their response is measured in terms of the average cell velocity towards the gradient.