Particle separation and diffusion based limitation

Deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) is a promising method for particle separation in the micrometer range, the proof of principle of which has been demonstrated to be successful in fields such as biomedicine and physics [1]. However, the enhanced particle dispersion (Figure 1 & 2) arising when separating very small particles (such as viruses and proteins) constitutes the main functional barrier of DLD-based devices. In this study theoretical predictions made by [2, 3] have been experimentally observed, the relation of the dispersion effect with the construction parameters of the bumper arrays has been investigated, and a strategy for dispersion reduction is suggested.