Electrical Impedance Characterization of Cell Growth on Interdigitated Microelectrode Array

Abstract

Electrical cell-substrate impedance sensing is a method for label-free and real-time monitoring of biological cells, which has been increasingly employed in the diagnostic and pharmaceutical industries. In this study, we fabricated an interdigitated electrode (IDE) array, which consists of 10 fingers, with a length of 1.2 mm, width of 50 mu m, spacing of 50 mu m, and thickness of 75 nm. The impedance spectra of the fabricated IDE were measured without or with cells in the frequency range of 100 Hz to 100 kHz using a lock-in amplifier based system and characterized by equivalent circuit modelling. Regarding the total impedance as a series resistance (R) and capacitance (C) model, R and C parameters were traced at a selected frequency during cell growth. It was able to monitor cell adherence and proliferation dependent on the behaviours and characteristics of cells on the fabricated IDE array by monitoring RC parameters. The degree of changes in RC value during cell growth was dependent on the type of cells used.