PubCard - Manipulations of micro/nanoparticles using gigahertz acoustic streaming tweezers

(Peer-Reviewed) Manipulations of micro/nanoparticles using gigahertz acoustic streaming tweezers

Hang Wu ¹, Zifan Tang ², Rui You 游睿 ¹, Shuting Pan 潘书婷 ¹, Wenpeng Liu 刘文朋 ¹, Hongxiang Zhang 张鸿翔 ¹, Tiechuan Li ¹, Yang Yang 杨洋 ¹, Chongling Sun 孙崇玲 ¹, Wei Pang 庞慰 ¹, Xuexin Duan 段学欣 ¹

¹ State Key Laboratory of Precision Measuring Technology and Instruments, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
中国天津天津大学精密测试技术及仪器国家重点实验室
² Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

Nanotechnology and Precision Engineering, 2022-04-05

https://doi.org/10.1063/10.0009954

https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/10.0009954

ABSTRACT

Contactless acoustic manipulation of micro/nanoscale particles has attracted considerable attention owing to its near independence of the physical and chemical properties of the targets, making it universally applicable to almost all biological systems.

Thin-film bulk acoustic wave (BAW) resonators operating at gigahertz (GHz) frequencies have been demonstrated to generate localized high-speed microvortices through acoustic streaming effects. Benefitting from the strong drag forces of the high-speed vortices, BAW-enabled GHz acoustic streaming tweezers (AST) have been applied to the trapping and enrichment of particles ranging in size from micrometers to less than 100 nm. However, the behavior of particles in such 3D microvortex systems is still largely unknown.

In this work, the particle behavior (trapping, enrichment, and separation) in GHz AST is studied by theoretical analyses, 3D simulations, and microparticle tracking experiments. It is found that the particle motion in the vortices is determined mainly by the balance between the acoustic streaming drag force and the acoustic radiation force. This work can provide basic design principles for AST-based lab-on-a-chip systems for a variety of applications.