Contactless, programmable acoustofluidic manipulation of objects on water

• DOI: 10.1039/c9lc00465c
• Publication Date: 2019-09-11T10:33:36Z
• Authors: Peiran Zhang; Chuyi Chen; Feng Guo; Julien Philippe; Yuyang Gu; Zhenhua Tian; Hunter Bachman; Liqiang Ren; Shujie Yang; Zhanwei Zhong; Po-Hsun Huang; Nicholas Katsanis; Krishnendu Chakra...; Tony Jun Huang
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Sound; Larva; Niobium; Microfluidics; Transducers; Animals; Water; Oxides; Zebrafish

Contact-free manipulation of small objects (e.g., cells, tissues, and droplets) using acoustic waves eliminates physical contact with structures undesired surface adsorption. Pioneering acoustic-based, contact-free techniques levitation) enable programmable but are limited by evaporation, bulky transducers, inefficient coupling in air. Herein, we report an acoustofluidic mechanism for the contactless on water. A hollow-square-shaped interdigital transducer (IDT) is fabricated lithium niobate (LiNbO3), immersed water used as a sound source to generate micropump pump fluid ±x ±y orthogonal directions. As result, which float adjacent excited IDT can be pushed unidirectionally (horizontally) following directed wave propagation. fluidic processor was developed patterning units 6-by-6 array. We demonstrate contactless, oil droplets zebrafish larvae. This acoustofluidic-based opens avenues processing materials biosamples.