A novel analogy: application of higher-order mode theory in the mechanical domain to the electromagnetic domain

Abstract

It is crucial to engineer novel detection schemes that can extract information pertinent to the morphological properties of the analytes for widespread usage of lab-on-a-chip technology. Within the scope of this thesis, a novel method that is originated in mechanical domain based on NEMS resonators is adapted to electromagnetic domain with employment of electromagnetic resonators operate in microwave regime. The viability of the proposed method is assessed both by experiments and simulations. The designed micro uidic channel embedded microstrip resonator is driven at its rst two resonant modes simultaneously by a phase-locked loop to detect the analyte passage events within the channel. The attained resolution is 2x10􀀀8 for both modes at the response time in terms of allan deviation. With the detection scheme we constructed, the location and electrical volume of the microdroplets and cells are obtained. It is shown that the two-mode detection scheme based on microwave resonators can be extended to applications that exploits even higher-order modes to obtain the size, orientation, skewness and permittivity information of the target analytes. Morevover, the framework presented here forms a base for a novel imaging application that can be alternative to optical microscopy.