A novel method to realize continuous input power control during acoustic droplet ejection

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel method that can achieve continuous control of the excitation power (equivalent to input voltage adjustment) of different reagents during acoustic droplet ejection (ADE). When a single ejector is employed, the positioning means should allow the transducer to move from one source fluid well to another quickly and in a controlled manner, thereby scanning of the source fluid wells for effective acoustic assessment and ejection therefrom. Current biotechnology screening techniques may involve many thousands of fluid transfer operations, time is wasted in the repeated power evaluation and determination processes, which is one of the critical problems in the application of acoustic droplet ejection. In this paper, we predict the required power value for producing any selected droplet initial velocity of other reagents by comparing with a standard product with known viscosity and surface tension, and realized continuous power control. Then, the power control method was verified by exciting the dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) droplets used in cell assays, which provided an improved acoustic liquid hanging tool for research based on cell assays and other biological analysis.