A contactless methodology of picking up micro-particles from rigid surfaces by acoustic radiation force

Controlled movement and pick up of small object from a rigid surface is a primary challenge in many applications. In this paper, a contactless methodology of picking up micro-particles within deionized water from rigid surfaces by acoustic radiation force is presented. In order to achieve this, an acoustic radiation force was generated by 1.75 MHz transducers. A custom built setup facilitates the optimization of the sound field by varying the parameters such as sound source size and source position. The three-dimensional pressure distributions are measured and its relative sound field is also characterized accordingly. The standing wave field has been formed and it is mainly composed of two obliquely incident plane waves and their reflectors. We demonstrated the gripping and positioning of silica beads, SiO2, and aluminum micro-particles of 100 mu m to 500 mu m in size with this method using acoustic radiation force. The acoustic radiation force generated is well controlled, contactless, and in the tens of nano-Newton range which allowed us to manipulate relative big micro objects such as MEMS components as well as moving objects such as living cells. The proposed method provided an alternative form of contactless operating environment with scalable dimensions suitable for the manipulating of small objects. This permits high-throughput processing and reduction in time required for MEMS assembling, cell biomechanics, and biotechnology applications. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3676636]