High stability enhanced ultrasonic microfluidic structure with flexible tip coupled bubbles

Abstract

Ultrasonic microfluidic technology is a technique that couples high-frequency ultrasonic excitation to microfluidic chips. To improve the issues of poor disturbance effects with flexible tip structures and the susceptibility of bubbles to thermal deformation, we propose an enhanced ultrasonic microchannel structure that couples flexible tips with bubbles aiming to improve the disturbance effects and the stability duration. Firstly, we used finite element analysis to simulate the flow field distribution characteristics of the flexible tip, the bubble, and the coupling structure and obtained the steady-state distribution characteristics of the velocity field. Next, we fabricated ultrasonic microfluidic chips based on these three structures, employing 2.8 μm polystyrene microspheres as tracers to analyze the disturbance characteristics of the flow field. Additionally, we analyzed the bubble size and growth rate within the adhering bubbles and coupling structures. Finally, we verified the applicability of the coupling structure for biological samples using human red blood cells (RBCs). Experimental results indicated that, compared to the flexible tip and adhering bubble structures, the flow field disturbance range of the coupling structure increased by 439.53% and 133.48%, respectively; the bubble growth rate reduced from 14.4% to 3.3%. The enhanced ultrasonic microfluidic structure proposed in this study shows great potential for widespread applications in micro-scale flow field disturbance and particle manipulation.