A biological analysis apparatus, comprising:
- a fluent material comprising biological particles;
- a flow arrangement comprising a channel through which the fluent material flows;
- a biological sensing apparatus, comprising plural sensing and stimulation cells all comprised in a same integrated circuit formed by a semiconductor fabrication process, wherein the integrated circuit is disposed relative to the channel, wherein each of the plural sensing and stimulation cells comprises an electric field applying apparatus and an electric field sensing apparatus, wherein the electric field applying apparatus comprises an electric field source circuit and a pair of electric field applying electrodes, the pair of electric field applying electrodes being electrically coupled to the electric field source circuit, the pair of electric field applying electrodes being disposed on a first side of the channel, and each of the pair of electric field applying electrodes has a dielectric layer which electrically isolates the electric field applying electrode from fluent material in the channel, wherein the electric field sensing apparatus comprises a sensing circuit and a pair of sensing electrodes, the sensing circuit being electrically coupled to the pair of sensing electrodes, the pair of sensing electrodes being disposed on the first side of the channel, and each of the pair of sensing electrodes has a dielectric layer which electrically isolates the sensing electrode from fluent material in the channel, wherein in each of the plural sensing and stimulation cells the pair of electric field applying electrodes has a first electrode and the pair of sensing electrodes has a second electrode, the first and second electrodes being structurally separate electrodes;
- a flow inducing apparatus causing the fluent material to flow through the channel;
- and
- a control apparatus electrically coupled to the flow inducing apparatus, and to the electric field source circuit and the sensing circuit of each of the plural sensing and stimulation cells, the control apparatus comprising an electronic circuit having a circuit structure and/or a non-transitory memory having programmed instructions, to control the flow inducing apparatus to cause the fluent material containing the biological particles to flow through the channel, control each of the electric field source circuits to apply an electric field to a respective one of the biological particles comprised in the fluent material by way of the pair of electric field applying electrodes as the fluent material flows through the channel, and control each of the sensing circuits to sense respective sensed electric field, wherein the biological particle cooperates with the applied electric field whereby the applied electric field is disturbed and the biological particle can be characterized, and wherein the sensing circuit senses by way of the pair of sensing electrodes the sensed electric field corresponding to the applied electric field as disturbed by the biological particle so as to characterize the biological particle, wherein the control apparatus compares each applied electric field with the respective sensed electric field corresponding to the applied electric field as disturbed by the respective biological particle to characterize the biological particle, wherein comparing each applied electric field with the respective sensed electric field comprises at least one of:
- cross-correlation of the applied electric field and the respective sensed electric field;
- and determining a transfer function based on the applied electric field and the respective sensed electric field.