Planar micromanipulation

Planar micromanipulation on microconveyor platforms recent developments... 

Key words planar micromanipulation microconveyor platforms programmable force fields MEMS. 

This section presents indicative implementations of actuator microconveyor platforms or actuators that could potentially be used for planar micromanipulation, separated into categories according to the classification made in the introduction thermomechanical, electrostatic, electromechanical and fluidic-mechanical. For each implementation, a brief description of the actuators, their operation principle as well as their reported performance characteristics is given unfortunately not all the information relevant within the scope of this chapter has been reported by the respective authors. At the end of the section, a comparison between the most promising actuators or platforms for planar micromanipulation is made in a concentrative table and the most suitable of them are determined based on the criteria proposed in the previous paragraph. 

Tozeren, P. K.-L. Sung, L. A. Sung, M. L. Dustin, P. Y. Chan, T. A. Springer, and S. Chien, Micromanipulation of adhesion of a jurkat cell to a planar bilayer-membrane containing lymphocyte function-associated antigen 3 molecules, J. Cell. Biol. 116, 997-1066 (1992). 

The need to plasma-treat the PDMS surface just before use may be a disadvantage of the planar electrode. This would add a plasma system to the required equipment for patch clamp experiments. However, the planar electrodes do not require use of the high-quality optical microscope and micromanipulators currently required for patch clamp recording. In addition, conventional patch pipettes commonly require several processing steps before use including heat polishing and coating. 

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