No abstract

A new method is reported on how to measure the local pressure amplitude and the Q factor of ultrasound resonances in microfluidic chips designed for acoustophoresis of particle suspensions. The method relies on tracking individual polystyrene tracer microbeads in straight water-filled silicon/glass microchannels. The system is actuated by a PZT piezo transducer attached beneath the chip and driven by an applied ac voltage near its eigenfrequency of 2 MHz. For a given frequency a number of particle tracks are recorded by a CCD camera and fitted to a theoretical expression for the acoustophoretic motion of the microbeads. From the curve fits we obtain the acoustic energy density, and hence the pressure amplitude as well as the acoustophoretic force. By plotting the obtained energy densities as a function of applied frequency, we obtain Lorentzian line shapes, from which the resonance frequency and the Q factor for each resonance peak are derived. Typical measurements yield acoustic energy densities of the order of 10 J/m 3 , pressure amplitudes of 0.2 MPa, and Q factors around 500. The observed half wavelength of the transverse acoustic pressure wave is equal within 2% to the measured width w ¼ 377 mm of the channel.

We present microparticle image velocimetry measurements of suspended microparticles of diameters from 0.6 to 10 μm undergoing acoustophoresis in an ultrasound symmetry plane in a microchannel. The motion of the smallest particles is dominated by the Stokes drag from the induced acoustic streaming flow, while the motion of the largest particles is dominated by the acoustic radiation force. For all particle sizes we predict theoretically how much of the particle velocity is due to radiation and streaming, respectively. These predictions include corrections for particle-wall interactions and ultrasonic thermoviscous effects and match our measurements within the experimental uncertainty. Finally, we predict theoretically and confirm experimentally that the ratio between the acoustic radiation- and streaming-induced particle velocities is proportional to the actuation frequency, the acoustic contrast factor, and the square of the particle size, while it is inversely proportional to the kinematic viscosity.

We present a platform for micro particle image velocimetry (μPIV), capable of carrying out full-channel, temperature-controlled, long-term-stable, and automated μPIV-measurement of microchannel acoustophoresis with uncertainties below 5% and a spatial resolution in the order of 20 μm. A method to determine optimal μPIV-settings for obtaining high-quality results of the spatially inhomogeneous acoustophoretic velocity fields of large dynamical range is presented. In particular we study the dependence of the results on the μPIV interrogation window size and the number of repeated experiments. The μPIV-method was further verified by comparing it with our previously published particle tracking method. Using the μPIV platform we present a series of high-resolution measurements of the acoustophoretic velocity field as a function of the driving frequency, the driving voltage, and the resonator temperature. Finally, we establish a direct and consistent connection between the obtained acoustophoretic velocity fields, and continuous flow mode acoustophoresis, commonly used in applications.

We present a numerical study of the acoustophoretic motion of particles suspended in a liquid-filled PDMS microchannel on a lithium niobate substrate acoustically driven by surface acoustic waves. We employ a perturbation approach where the flow variables are divided into first- and second-order fields. We use impedance boundary conditions to model the PDMS microchannel walls and we model the acoustic actuation by a displacement function from the literature based on a numerical study of piezoelectric actuation. Consistent with the type of actuation, the obtained first-order field is a horizontal standing wave that travels vertically from the actuated wall towards the upper PDMS wall. This is in contrast to what is observed in bulk acoustic wave devices. The first-order fields drive the acoustic streaming, as well as the time-averaged acoustic radiation force acting on suspended particles. We analyze the motion of suspended particles driven by the acoustic streaming drag and the radiation force. We examine a range of particle diameters to demonstrate the transition from streaming-drag-dominated acoustophoresis to radiation-force-dominated acoustophoresis. Finally, as an application of our numerical model, we demonstrate the capability to tune the position of the vertical pressure node along the channel width by tuning the phase difference between two incoming surface acoustic waves.