title: Analyzing Single Giant Unilamellar Vesicles With a Slotline-Based RF Nanometer Sensor.
abstract: Novel techniques that enable reagent free detection and analysis of single cells are of great interest for the development of biological and medical sciences as well as point-of-care health service technologies. Highly sensitive and broadband radio-frequency (RF) sensors are promising candidates for such a technique. In this work, we present a highly sensitive and tunable RF sensor, which is based on interference processes and built with a 100 nm slotline structure. The highly concentrated RF fields, up to ~1.76×107V/m, enable strong interactions between Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) and fields for high sensitivity operations. We also provide two modeling approaches to extract cell dielectric properties from measured scattering parameters. GUVs of different molecular compositions are synthesized and analyzed with the RF sensor at ~2 GHz, ~2.5 GHz, and ~2.8 GHz with an initial |S21|minof ~-100 dB. Corresponding GUV dielectric properties are obtained. A one-dimensional scanning of single GUV is also demonstrated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University, SC 29634, USA.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee 37232, USA.
authors.forename: Anne K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Kenworthy
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Edidin
authors.affiliation: Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439 USA.
authors.forename: Ralu
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Divan
authors.affiliation: Center for Nanoscale Materials, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439 USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rosenmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University, SC 29634, USA.
authors.forename: Pingshan
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wang
keywords: Complex dielectric permittivity; conformal mapping; giant unilamellar vesicles; microfluidics; microwave sensor