Reusable acoustic tweezers for disposable devices

Abstract

We demonstrate acoustic tweezers used for disposable devices. Rather than forming an acoustic resonance, we locally transmitted standing surface acoustic waves into a removable, independent polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)-glass hybridized microfluidic superstrate device for micromanipulation. By configuring and regulating the displacement nodes on a piezoelectric substrate, cells and particles were effectively patterned and transported into said superstrate, accordingly. With the label-free and contactless nature of acoustic waves, the presented technology could offer a simple, accurate, low-cost, biocompatible, and disposable method for applications in the fields of point-of-care diagnostics and fundamental biomedical studies.