Noncontact acoustic manipulation in air

A noncontact manipulation technique is useful for micromachine technology, biotechnology, and new materials processing. In this paper, we describe an advanced manipulation technique for transporting small objects in air. A standing wave field was generated by two sound beams crossing each other generated by bolted Langevin transducers. Expanded polystyrene particles were trapped at the nodes of the sound pressure in the standing wave field. The position of a trapped particle was shifted by changing the phase difference between the two sound beams. When the trapped particle is transported, it spatially oscillate periodically in a direction perpendicular to that of particle transportation. The numerical calculation of an acoustic field revealed that it is caused by the reflection of an ultrasonic wave at each transducer surface.