Complete cell separation by modulating inertial force

Inertial microfluidics has been attracting considerable interest due to immensely promising applications in cell separations and sorting. Despite the intense attention in recent years, the moderate efficiencies and low purity of reported devices have hindered their widespread acceptance. In this work, we report on a simple inertial microfluidic system with high efficiency (>99%) and purity(>90%). Our system builds on the concept of two-stage inertial migration which permits precise prediction of particle/cell position within the microchannel. With this approach, we successfully demonstrate a complete separation of particles and isolation of rare cells in blood spiked with human prostate epithelial tumor (HPET) cells.