Study on the electromechanics of a conducting particle under nonuniform electric field

This paper presents the study on the electromechanics of a conducting particle under nonuniform electric field between nonparallel electrodes. The purpose of the study is to investigate the feasibility of particle manipulation by the dielectrophoretic (DEP) force for insulation systems. A numerical simulation of the particle motion under electric field has been carried out to clarify the particle behavior without the application of particle manipulating technique. The results show that the charged particle moves to the region of lower electric field (wider gap), and the displacement increases with the tilt angle between the electrodes. The experimental measurement of the particle displacement agrees with the numerical results. For particle manipulation, the dielectric layers of silicone rubber and polyimide are placed on the grounded electrode. Numerical field calculation shows that with the dielectric layers, the DEP force attracts the particle to the region of higher field (smaller gap) and immobilizes it at the termination of the dielectric layers. Experiments are carried out to verify the theoretical prediction.