Development of a Microfluidic GHz Impedance Cytometer

This article presents anovel microfluidic impedance cytometer enabling dielectric characterization of single cells at frequencies up to 500 MHz. The dielectric properties of cells at lower frequencies contain information about their size and membrane capacitance. The increased frequency range of the presented cytometer potentially allows for characterization of intracellular components, such as vacuoles or the cell nuclei. We demonstrate the overall capabilities of the cytometer through discrimination of polystyrene beads from Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. The discrimination is based on the difference in dielectric properties at frequencies up to 500 MH