Surface acoustic wave devices for sorting cells and particles

• Main Author: Lin, Den Yuxuan.
• Other Authors: School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46101
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) being a nanometer order amplitude electroelastic waves that propagate along the surface of a piezoelectric substrate, induces megahertz order vibrations to facilitate fluid and particles manipulation at a much finer scale that is commensurate with microfluidic devices. It is useful in the applications to atomise, handle, move, split, mix and merge microdroplets. Observation and past researches were done on the SAW effect in microscale fluid actuation, micromixing, jetting, atomising and sorting. Several common techniques for sorting of microparticles are illustrated and an in-depth investigation is done on SAW sorting methods in the report. Experiments are designed and conducted to verify the effectiveness of using SAW for sorting. Results and observations are reflected and evaluated in the report. The report makes an affirmation of using standing wave as a possible way of sorting in the microchannel, by the aggregation of the microparticles along the nodal lines. This report hopes to devise another way to sort the microparticles with the propagating SAW, thus, a series of proposals and problems analysis are included in the report.