Patent ID: 8736287

Claim:
A conductance detector for detecting conductivity and/or dielectric constant of one or more chemical and/or biological species in a phase, comprising: a cell structure including a rigid architecture having a top surface a portion of which is electrically conductive forming a first conductive component; a second conductive component substantially overlapping the first conductive component and spaced from said first conductive component by an insulating component; one or more flow pathways between the first conductive component and the second conductive component for the chemical and/or biological species to flow; the first conductive component, the second conductive component and the insulating component having an architecture selected to give a cross sectional area over which a displacement current and/or external current flows that is on an order of about 1 cm 2 ; and a distance over which the displacement current and/or external current flows that is in a range from about nanometer to hundreds of microns and even higher; a power supply for generating a time dependent electrical signal for inducing a time dependent response, the power supply being coupled to at least one of said first and second conductive components; a signal detector coupled to at least one of said first and second conductive components for measuring the time dependent response; and a microprocessor connected to said signal detector for determining changes in conductance caused by a presence of said chemical and/or biological species in said phase.