Issue 31, 2019

Trapping of sub-100 nm nanoparticles using gigahertz acoustofluidic tweezers for biosensing applications

Abstract

In this study, we present a nanoscale acoustofluidic trap (AFT) that manipulates nanoparticles in a microfluidic system actuated by a gigahertz acoustic resonator. The AFT generates independent standing closed vortices with high-speed rotation. Via careful design and optimization of geometric confinements, the AFT was able to effectively capture and enrich sub-100 nm nanoparticles with a low power consumption (0.25–5 μW μm−2) and rapid trapping (within 30 s), showing significantly enhanced particle-operating ability as compared to its acoustic and optical counterparts; using specifically functionalized nanoparticles (SFNPs) to selectively capture target molecules from the sample, the AFT led to the molecular concentration enhancement of ∼200 times. We investigated the feasibility of the SFNP-assisted AFT preconcentration method for biosensing applications and successfully demonstrated the capability of this method for the detection of serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA). The AFT was prepared via a fully CMOS-compatible process and thus could be conveniently integrated on a single chip, with potential for “lab-on-a-chip” or point-of-care (POC) nanoparticle-based biosensing applications.

Graphical abstract: Trapping of sub-100 nm nanoparticles using gigahertz acoustofluidic tweezers for biosensing applications

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
25 Apr 2019
Accepted
08 Jun 2019
First published
10 Jun 2019

Nanoscale, 2019,11, 14625-14634

Trapping of sub-100 nm nanoparticles using gigahertz acoustofluidic tweezers for biosensing applications

W. Cui, L. Mu, X. Duan, W. Pang and M. A. Reed, Nanoscale, 2019, 11, 14625 DOI: 10.1039/C9NR03529J

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