In this paper a study is presented on the behaviour of particles in a sheath flow. In general a sheath flow in a micro-channel has many benefits [1], such as fewer problems with air-bubbles, a low detection limit and less critical fabrication tolerances. A series of experiments was designed to investigate whether it is feasible to have these benefits of a sheath flow also in micro-systems for the analysis of particles. The studied sheath flow is to be applied in an integrated Coulter counter [2] with a liquid based aperture defined by a non-coaxial sheath flow [3]. The sheath flow consists of a non- conductive liquid that partially surrounds a flow of conductive liquid, which defines the Coulter aperture. The main advantage of this device is that the Coulter aperture can be optimised dynamically to the particle size.
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