SAW synthesis with IDTs array and the inverse filter: toward a versatile SAW toolbox for microfluidics and biological applications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a versatile SAW synthesis platform using IDT arrays and inverse filtering, capable of generating various wave-fields for microfluidic and biological applications, including complex vortices.

Contribution

It presents a novel multi-function platform that synthesizes classical and complex SAW wave-fields with a single system, enhancing flexibility for microfluidic applications.

Findings

Successful synthesis of classical wave-fields for microfluidics

Generation of swirling acoustical vortices demonstrated

Platform enables multiple operations on sessile droplets

Abstract

Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) are versatile tools to manipulate fluids at small scales for microfluidics and bio- logical applications. A non-exhaustive list of operations that can be performed with SAW includes sessile droplet displacement, atomization, division and merging but also the actuation of fluids embedded in microchannels or the manipulation of suspended particles. However, each of these operations requires a specific design of the wave generation system, the so-called interdigitated transducers (IDTs). Depending on the application, it might indeed be necessary to generate focused or plane, propagating or standing, aligned or shifted waves. Furthermore, the possibilities offered by more complex wave-fields such as acoustical vortices for particle tweezing and liquid twisting cannot be explored with classical IDTs. In this paper, we show that the inverse filter technique coupled with an interdigitated transducers array (IDTA) enables to synthesize all classical wave-fields used in microfluidics and biological applications with a single multi- function platform. It also enables to generate swirling SAWs, whose potential for the on-chip synthesis of tailored acoustical vortices has been demonstrated lately. The possibilities offered by this platform is illustrated by performing successively many operations on sessile droplets with the same system.