Flow-rate-insensitive deterministic particle sorting using a combination of travelling and standing surface acoustic waves

Manipulation of cells by acoustic forces in a continuous flow offers a means to sort on the basis of physical properties in a contactless, label-free and biocompatible manner. Many acoustic sorting systems rely on either standing waves or travelling waves alone and require specific exposure times to the acoustic field, fine-tuned by manipulating the bulk flow rate. In this work, we demonstrate a flow-rate-insensitive device for continuous particle sorting by employing a pressure field that utilises both travelling and standing acoustic wave components, whose non-uniform spatial distribution arises from the attenuation of a leaky surface acoustic wave. We show that in parts of the pressure field in which the travelling wave component dominates, particles migrate across multiple wavelengths. In doing so, they drift into areas of standing wave dominance, whereby particles are confined within their respective nodal positions. It is demonstrated that this final confinement location is dependent on the particle size and independent of the force field exposure time and thus the flow rate, permitting the continuous separation of 5.1-, 6.1- and 7.0-µm particles. Omitting the need to precisely control the bulk flow rate potentially enables sorting in systems in which flow is not driven by external pumps.     

Optimal pressure-sensitive cuts for surface acoustic waves on langasite

The crystal langasite (La3Ga5SiO14; abbreviated as LGS), not only has temperature compensated orientations for SAW, but also has a stronger electromechanical coupling coefficient k2 of 0.5%, which is about 2―3 times greater than that of quartz. Another a…     

Numerical simulation of piezoelectrically agitated surface acoustic waves on microfluidic biochips

Microfluidic biochips are biochemical laboratories on the microscale that are used for genotyping and sequencing in genomics, protein profiling in proteomics, and cytometry in cell analysis. There are basically two classes of such biochips: active devices, where the solute transport on a network of channels on the chip surface is realized by external forces, and passive chips, where this is done using a specific design of the geometry of the channel network. Among the active biochips, current interest focuses on devices whose operational principle is based on piezoelectrically driven surface acoustic waves (SAWs) generated by interdigital transducers placed on the chip surface. In this paper, we are concerned with the numerical simulation of such piezoelectrically agitated SAWs relying on a mathematical model that describes the coupling of the underlying piezoelectric and elastomechanical phenomena. Since the interdigital transducers usually operate at a fixed frequency, we focus on the time-harmonic case. Its variational formulation gives rise to a generalized saddle point problem for which a Fredholm alternative is shown to hold true. The discretization of the time-harmonic surface acoustic wave equations is taken care of by continuous, piecewise polynomial finite elements with respect to a nested hierarchy of simplicial triangulations of the computational domain. The resulting algebraic saddle point problems are solved by blockdiagonally preconditioned iterative solvers with preconditioners of BPX-type. Numerical results are given both for a test problem documenting the performance of the iterative solution process and for a realistic SAW device illustrating the properties of SAW propagation on piezoelectric materials. The first two authors have been supported by the DFG within the Collaborative Research Center SFB 438. The seond author acknowledges further support by the NSF under Grant No. DMS-0411403, Grant No. DMS-0412267 and Grant-No. DMS-0511611.     

A dielectrophoretic barrier-based microsystem for separation of microparticles

This paper presents a microfluidic system for separation of microparticles based on the use of dielectrophoretic barriers, which are constructed by aligning two layers of microelectrode structure face-to-face on the top and bottom sides of the microchannel. The energized barriers tend to prevent the particles in the flow from passing through. However, particles may penetrate the barriers if a sufficiently high flow rate is used. The flow velocity at which the particles begin to penetrate the barrier is defined as threshold velocity. Different particles are of different threshold velocities so that they can be separated. In this paper, the electrodes are configured with open ends and aligned with a certain angle to the direction of the flow. Polystyrene microbeads of different sizes (i.e., 9.6 and 16 μm in diameter) are studied in the tests. Under the experimental conditions, two particle trajectories are observed: the 9.6 μm beads penetrate the barriers and move straightly toward the fluidic outlet, while the 16 μm beads snake their way along the electrode edges at a relatively low speed. The two subpopulations of particles are separated into spatial distance of ∼10 mm within tens of seconds. The system presents a rapid and dynamic separation process within a continuous flow.     

Dielectrophoretic separation of carbon nanotubes and polystyrene microparticles

The separation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and polystyrene microparticles using a dielectrophoresis (DEP) system is presented. The DEP system consists of arrays of parallel microelectrodes patterned on a glass substrate. The performance of the system is evaluated by means of numerical simulations. The MWCNTs demonstrate a positive DEP behaviour and can be trapped at the regions of high electric field. However, the polystyrene microparticles demonstrate a negative DEP behaviour at a certain range of frequencies and migrate to the regions of low electric field. Experiments are performed on the microparticles at the frequencies between 100 Hz and 1 MHz to estimate their crossover frequency and select the range of separation frequencies. Further, experiments are conducted at the obtained range of separation frequencies to separate the MWCNTs and polystyrene microparticles.     

Accurate finite element modeling of acoustic waves

In the paper we suggest an accurate finite element approach for the modeling of acoustic waves under a suddenly applied load. We consider the standard linear elements and the linear elements with reduced dispersion for the space discretization as well as the explicit central-difference method for time integration. The analytical study of the numerical dispersion shows that the most accurate results can be obtained with the time increments close to the stability limit. However, even in this case and the use of the linear elements with reduced dispersion, mesh refinement leads to divergent numerical results for acoustic waves under a suddenly applied load. This is explained by large spurious high-frequency oscillations. For the quantification and the suppression of spurious oscillations, we have modified and applied a two-stage time-integration technique that includes the stage of basic computations and the filtering stage. This technique allows accurate convergent results at mesh refinement as well as significantly reduces the numerical anisotropy of solutions. We should mention that the approach suggested is very general and can be equally applied to any loading as well as for any space-discretization technique and any explicit or implicit time-integration method.     

基于SAW表面气液相效应和GC分离柱的气敏传感器的研究

限于传统涂敷敏感膜的声表面波（SAW）气敏传感器存在成膜困难和选择性差、重复性差以及再生性差等问题，本研究提出一种基于压电基底表面气体气液相转换效应机理的瑞利波传感器。首先建立了挥发性有机气体(VOCs)液相凝聚体薄层负载下的SAW波传模型，并仿真计算了其波传频散和波传衰减。然后在此基础上开发了一种基于瑞利声表面波传感器和气相色谱（GC）分离柱的便携式气体检测系统。最后实验论证了方案的可行性，初步的实验结果表明该系统具有分析时间短、选择性好、灵敏度高（可检测ppb浓度的混合VOCs）以及成本低等优势，因此其在痕量挥发性有机气体检测和分析应用上有良好的潜力和前景。     

High-throughput micromixers based on acoustic streaming induced by surface acoustic wave

Flow characteristics in microfluidic devices is naturally laminar due to the small channel dimensions. Mixing based on molecular diffusion is generally poor. In this article, we report the fabrication and characterization of active surface-acousticwave-driven micromixers which exploit the acoustic streaming effect to significantly improve the mixing efficiency. A side-by-side flow of water and fluorescent dye solution was driven by a syringe pump. Surface wave with a frequency of 13 MHz was launched perpendicular to the flow. The wave was generated by two designs of interdigitated electrodes on LiNbO₃ substrate: parallel electrodes and focusing electrodes. The mixing efficiency was observed to be proportional to the square of the applied voltage. Under the same applied voltage, the focusing type offers a better mixing efficiency. The fabrication of the micromixer is compatible to current technology such as soft lithography and deep reactive ion etching. Despite the high throughput and fast mixing time, the mixer design is simple and could be integrated into any microfluidic platform.     

一种用于叶蝉鸣声信号的采集与分离方法研究

为了解决昆虫声学研究中无法同时对多只昆虫的声音进行采集分析的问题,运用信号采集和盲信号分离的方法,在Matlab环境下首次对蝉类混合鸣声信号进行了采集,并使用改进的FastICA方法对混合信号进行预处理,而后使用负熵最大的FastICA算法对预白化处理后的观测信号进行分离。结果表明,该方法可以有效地获取独立的鸣声信号,实现了叶蝉行为观察与信号分析的同步,解决了目前无法同时对多个昆虫鸣声进行采集和分离这一难题,为昆虫声学的进一步研究提出了一个新的思路。     

Fast nanofluidics by travelling surface waves

In this paper, we investigate the fast flow in nanochannels, which is induced by the travelling surface waves. The nanoscale fluid mechanism in nanochannels has been influenced by both amplitude and frequency of travelling surface waves, and the hydrodynamic characteristics have been obtained by molecular dynamics simulations. It has been found that the flow rate is an increasing function of the amplitude of travelling surface waves and can be up to a sevenfold increase. However, the flow rate is only enhanced in the limited range of frequency of travelling surface waves such as low frequencies, and a maximum fivefold increase in flow rate is pronounced. In addition, the fluid–wall interaction (surface wettability) plays an important role in the nanoscale transport phenomena, and the flow rate is significantly increased under a strong fluid–wall interaction (hydrophilicity) in the presence of travelling surface waves. Moreover, the friction coefficient on the wall of nanochannels is decreased obviously due to the large slip length, and the shear viscosity of fluid on the hydrophobic surface is increased by travelling surface waves. It can be concluded that the travelling surface wave has a potential function to facilitate the flow in nanochannels with respect to the decrease in surface friction on the walls. Our results allow to define better strategies for the fast nanofluidics by travelling surface waves.     

Stepwise gray-scale light-induced electric field gradient for passive and continuous separation of microparticles

This article presents a gray-scale light-induced dielectrophoresis (GS-LIDEP) method that induces the lateral displacements normal to the through-flow for continuous and passive separation of microparticles. In general, DEP force only can affect the particles within very local areas due to the electric field is exponentially decayed by the distance away from the electrodes. Unlike with conventional LIDEP, a broad-ranged electrical field gradient can easily be created by GS pattern illumination, which induces DEP forces with two directions for continuous separation of particles to their specific sub-channels. Candia albicans were effectively guided to the specific outlet with the efficiency of 90% to increase the concentration of the sample below the flow rate of 0.6?μl/min. 2 and 10?μm polystyrene particles can also be passively and well separated using the multi-step GS pattern through positive and negative DEP forces, respectively, under an applied voltage of 36?V_p–p at the frequency of 10?kHz. GS-LIDEP generated a wide-ranged DEP force that is capable of working on the entire area of the microchannel, and thus the mix of particles can be passively and continuously separated toward the opposite directions by the both positive and negative GS-LIDEP forces. This simple, low cost, and flexible separation/manipulation platform could be very promising for many applications, such as in-field detections/pretreatments.     

Pregnant women and working surface height and working surface areas for standing manual work

Physically loading aspects of work may have adverse effects on the health of both the pregnant woman and the unborn child. Improving the fit between the pregnant woman and the workplace layout contributes to minimizing the load associated with given tasks. The aim of this paper is to evaluate two layout aspects for standing manual work, namely working surface height and working surface areas, for the condition of pregnancy. Two approaches were used. (1) The effects of changed body dimensions were evaluated with regard to (a) fit problems while working at a workplace in accordance with common guidelines and (b) the validity of assumptions of these guidelines. (2) The appreciation of relevant aspects of workplace layout at a specific manual task was assessed. Twenty-seven women were examined in pregnant and non-pregnant conditions. The first approach showed that fit problems are likely: guideline working surface height is just (2-7 cm) under the most protruding abdominal point, and areas based on non-pregnant abdominal depth are relatively large in pregnant condition. Further, existing methods to assess working surface areas have various assumptions that are not valid in pregnant condition. The second approach showed that at a specific manual task, women in late pregnancy preferred a considerably lower table height than the common guideline heights. Possibly, abdominal height becomes a relevant design factor with regard to working surface height during pregnancy. The task position on the working surface at which effort started became closer to the table edge due to pregnancy. Both approaches show that common guideline working surface heights for manual work, and working surface areas assessed in non-pregnant condition seem not suitable in pregnant condition.     

Solving surface structures from normal incidence X-ray standing wave data

A program is provided to determine structural parameters of atoms in or adsorbed on surfaces by refinement of atomistic models towards experimentally determined data generated by the normal incidence X-ray standing wave (NIXSW) technique. The method employs a combination of Differential Evolution Genetic Algorithms and Steepest Descent Line Minimisations to provide a fast, reliable and user friendly tool for experimentalists to interpret complex multidimensional NIXSW data sets.

Program summary

Program title: NIXSW Planewave SolverCatalogue identifier: ADZE_v1_0Program summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ADZE_v1_0.htmlProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. IrelandLicensing provisions: Standard CPC licence, http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/licence/licence.htmlNo. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 16 874No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 1 631 874Distribution format: tar.gzProgramming language: Borland C++ Builder 5Computer: Any Windows CompatibleOperating system: Windows 2000 and XPRAM: <10 MBClassification: 7.4Nature of problem: Using NIXSW experimental data to calculate atomic positions of adsorbates.Restrictions: Data from substrates must have cubic, tetragonal or orthorhombic crystal structures i.e. with 90° between conventional cell axes.Running time: Seconds-minutes dependant on the number of plane waves and the number of atomic sites.     

声表面波阵列传感器研究进展

声表面波(SAW)阵列传感器具有许多独特的优点,目前已成为检测化学毒剂的重要手段之一:近年来,随着以SAW阵列传感器为主要技术的电子鼻的发展,使得SAW阵列传感器在食品检测、环境治理等领域得到了广泛应用.对SAW阵列传感器的发展及其应用进行了综述.     

声表面波驱动微流体研究

报道了在128°旋转Y切割X传播方向的LiNbO3基片上研制了微流体驱动器件。RF信号经功率放大器放大后馈入叉指换能器,由它激发的声表面波驱动微流体。为减少由于声波辐射引起微流体温度上升,提出了间接微流体驱动方法,即通过声表面波驱动中间微粒,再由此驱动目标微流体。实验表明:声表面波驱动微流体所需的RF信号功率决定于微流体体积和粘性;采用间接方法驱动1μL50%甘油水液滴,在10V的RF信号持续5min下其温度变化仅0.5℃,而相同条件下直接驱动该液滴,其温度上升12.6℃。     

Standing wave type surface acoustic wave atomizer

A new standing wave type surface acoustic wave (SAW) atomizer is proposed and tested. To investigate atomization characteristics, the earlier progressive wave and the proposed standing wave types of atomizer are compared by means of vibration mode, atomization speed, and electrostatic deposition tests. In the case of the vibration mode and atomization speed tests, the standing wave type showed higher standing wave ratio (SWR) and slower atomization speed than the progressive wave type. In the electrostatic deposition test, a liquid sample is atomized by two types of SAW atomizer combined with two different driving modes, namely continuous and intermittent drive. The deposited dry particles are then measured by field-emission type scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and particle sizes are calculated by image processing software. In the results, only the standing wave with continuous drive showed no second peak within size distribution.     

声表面波RFID接收机的设计

设计了一款基于超外差技术的声表面波SAW RFID读卡器,其工作频率在915 MHz。该读卡器不仅可以在金属物体、高温、强磁场干扰等恶劣环境中正常工作,而且在不增加任何传感器的情况下可以反映出物体的温度值。详细阐述了整个接收机的设计方案,给出了硬件模块的电路设计,并对镜像干扰及其抑制方法进行了研究。     

Performance analysis of dynamic acoustic source separation in reverberant rooms

We study the effect of reverberation and source movement on the performance of blind source separation and deconvolution (BSSD) algorithms. Using the model of statistical room acoustics we derive theoretical performance measures for a class of unmixing algorithms when these are used in a reverberant room. We specifically investigate the cases: 1) where separation of only direct paths is performed and 2) the case where unmixing of the full reverberant paths is attempted. We develop closed-form performance measures that are dependent on the geometry used and the chosen unmixing system. Using these measures allows us to draw general conclusions on the robustness to source movement of typical BSSD algorithms. Results indicate that performance of systems that show very good separation in static reverberant environments is significantly reduced when sources move, with performance degrading to that of simple direct-path separation.     

Design of new microchannel to reduce applied voltage for microparticles separation using dielectrophoresis method

This paper presents a new structure of microchannel in order to reduce the applied voltage using dielectrophoresis (DEP). DEP is one of the most popular techniques to separate microparticles which needs an electric field in microfluidic devices. In this study, the AC-DEP sidewall electrodes are used. The novelty of this research is to change the outlet microchannel size which effectively reduces applied voltage. In previous work, in order to separate particles with 3.5 and 4 µm diameters, 4.5 V was needed. In new design, we keep all effective parameters constant and change one of the outlet microchannel size from 50 to 60, 70 and 80 µm. Therefore, in order to separate the microparticles, we need only 3, 2 and 1.3 V, respectively.

     

An educational SAR sea surface waves simulator

This paper describes a Synthetic Aperture Radar sea surface waves simulator, based on the velocity bunching theory and developed in the Matlab^® programming language. The software has been designed and implemented for educational use. The present version of this software is run in classes at National Oceanographic Centre of Southampton, UK and at the Università di Napoli Parthenope, Italy.