Acoustically-Driven Microfluidics
Leslie Yeo,
Professor,
RMIT University
Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) have emerged as a powerful mechanism for microfluidic actuation and manipulation; its key advantages being the sheer speeds at which fluids can be transported—typically an order of magnitude faster than that currently achievable through other means, and the possibility for integrating a portable battery-powered driver circuit together with the microfluidic device to comprise a completely miniature chip-scale platform. We have demonstrated the use of SAWs to drive rapid particle patterning and separation, drop translation and splitting, micromixing, micropumping, microcentrifugation, jetting and atomisation for a wide range of applications across biosensing, diagnostics, biomaterials synthesis and drug delivery. Further, we have also discovered a host of new phenomena associated with how SAWs interact with fluids and have uncovered their underpinning physicochemical hydrodynamic mechanisms.
|
|
