An Octagonal Acoustofluidic Device for Multimode Cell and Particle Patterning and Dynamical Manipulation

Abstract

The combination of cell patterning and manipulation has become a popular field of research in the current clinical background and experimental environment, and the significance of patterning is helpful to study the relationship between cells. Acoustic-based manipulation methods have become the current mainstream method due to their excellent noncontact and biocompatibility, and high controllability. This work proposed an octagonal chamber enclosed by multiple piezoelectric (PZT) transducers to generate multiple modes of ultrasonic acoustic fields by configuring different excitation signals. Cells and particles can be manipulated at the fixed pressure nodes in the formed acoustic field, and diversified patterns, such as stripes, lattices, and hexagons, can be formed. Furthermore, based on the advantages of the multi-PZT configuration of the device, the pattern conversion and precise quantitative movement of cells and particles can be achieved by adjusting the phase parameters of the excitation signals. This work investigated the relationship between the combination of different PZT, the phase parameters of the excitation signal, and the pattern formation through numerical simulation and experiments. Also, the overall quantitative movements of the patterns were achieved by adjusting the phase shift of excitation signals of PZT transducers. The mathematical relationship between the relative movement offset and the wavelength was studied and verified. Finally, the device realized complex trajectory motion control of cells and particles by automatically and rapidly switching the working modes and phase parameters of the PZT transducers. As an open and low-cost device, this research can provide a new idea for cell patterning and position manipulation.