Hybrid Characterization of Nanolitre Dielectric Fluids in a Single Microfluidic Channel up to 110 GHz Song

Published

December 1, 2017

Author(s)

Nathan D. Orloff, Song Liu, James C. Booth, Dylan F. Williams, Dominec Schreurs, Bart Nauwelaers, Iija Oclet, Charles A. Little

Abstract

In this work, we present a new “hybrid” method for dielectric measurements of nanolitre fluid samples on-wafer. The first part of the hybrid method is a technique which extracts the 4 complex permittivity of the microfluidic channel wall material. The extraction is performed with an empty channel measurement, and thus requires no extra de-embedding structures. The second part of the hybrid method is on accurate extraction of complex permittivity of dielectric fluids. The hybrid method uses three different extraction algorithms and calculates their Type B uncertainties using the NIST Microwave Uncertainty Framework. By choosing the calculation algorithm with the 12 smallest uncertainty at each frequency, the hybrid method can achieve accurate measurements of dielectric fluids permittivity over a broad bandwidth. One of the three algorithms is a new algorithm based on closed-form equations. A trace based algorithm is applied for fluids measurements, for the first time to our knowledge. Through the uncertainty analysis, we found out that these two algorithms should be favored over a traditional least-squares optimization based algorithm at millimeter wave frequencies, due to their lower sensitivities to probe-placement errors.

Citation

IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

microfluidics, dielectric liquid, millimeter wave technology

Citation

Orloff, N. , Liu, S. , Booth, J. , Williams, D. , Schreurs, D. , Nauwelaers, B. , Oclet, I. and Little, C. (2017), Hybrid Characterization of Nanolitre Dielectric Fluids in a Single Microfluidic Channel up to 110 GHz Song, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=920032 (Accessed October 2, 2025)