Dielectrophoresis is the motion of a particle due to the interaction between a non-uniform electric field and its induced dipole moment in the particle. With the advent of the fabrication technology at micro/nanoscale, dielectrophoresis is actively applied in manipulating, separating, and characterizing micro/nano-sized particles such as DNA, cells, proteins, nanotubes and nanoparticles. In this paper we introduce control engineers to dielectrophoresis by suggesting several possible research topics and performing a case study: a time-optimal control of a dielectrophoretic system with a state constraint. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.