Diffraction-based acoustic manipulation in microchannels enables continuous particle and bacteria focusing.

Abstract

Acoustic fields have shown wide utility for micromanipulation, though their implementation in microfluidic devices often requires accurate alignment or highly precise channel dimensions, including in typical standing surface acoustic wave (SSAW) devices and resonant channels. In this work we investigate an approach that permits continuous microscale focusing based on diffractive acoustics, a phenomenon where a time-averaged spatially varying acoustic pressure landscape is produced by bounding a surface acoustic wave (SAW) transducer with a microchannel. By virtue of diffractive effects, this acoustic field is formed with the application of only a single travelling wave. As the field is dicta..