Ultrasonic manipulation of particles in an open fluid film.

Ultrasonic manipulation is a noncontact method of trapping and holding particles in suspension, and has found many applications in microfluidic systems. Typically, ultrasonic standing waves are used; this approach is well established in fully enclosed microfluidic systems consisting of channels or chambers with an attached piezoelectric actuator. In this work, we examine the use of ultrasonic manipulation in open fluid films, which offer a high degree of accessibility. A piezoelectric actuator is presented which can be lowered into a separate fluid tray. This two-part system offers a high degree of flexibility; indeed the actuator can be removed with little disturbance to the particle patterns, so manipulation could potentially be periodically applied as required. Particle manipulation is shown to be possible over a distance many times the size of the actuator. Furthermore, particle manipulation can also be achieved in a tilted fluid film, so alignment between the two parts of the system is not critical to its operation.

Non-contact acoustic trapping in circular cross-section glass capillaries: a numerical study.

Ultrasonic particle manipulation has many applications in microfluidic systems. Such manipulation is achievable by establishing an ultrasonic standing wave in fluid filled micromachined chambers. In this work, the focus is on analyzing the trapping potential of water filled capillary tubes actuated ultrasonically. The curved walls necessitate the use of a finite element modeling approach. Multiple arrangements of the piezoelectric transducers were studied along with the effects of changing the capillary and piezoelectric transducer thicknesses. Additionally, different modes of driving the piezoelectric transducers were investigated. It was found that positioning four piezoelectric transducers equally spaced around the capillary tube provided the best force potential field for trapping polystyrene spheres in the center of the capillary.

Sorting of brownian rods by the use of an asymmetric potential.

We present here a method for sorting nanometer scale brownian rods by using a switching asymmetric periodic potential. A two stage sorting process is used to isolate particles with specific dimensions, with acceptable sorting times as well as realizable potential barrier lengths. The method was tested using computer simulations. The ability to sort the nanometer scale anisotropic particles, such as gold nanorods, portends important applications in large scale data recording, photothermal surgery, and bioimaging.