Design Studies and Optimization of Acoustic Pressure in Acoustofluidic Cell Manipulation Platforms

Acoustofluidics, combining acoustics and microfluidics, is a growing field with applications in various scientific disciplines. It can be successfully applied in trapping and manipulating single cells for research towards the development of efficient drugs and medical treatments. We present a numerical study that investigates the effect of fluidics, geometrical and material properties, and acoustic frequencies on the confinement of cells using piezoelectric actuation in liquid-filled spherical microchambers assembled in an array configuration. The use of simple acoustic-fluidic chip configurations in combination with established microscopic methods bears immense potential for revolutionizing biomedical research and clinical diagnostics. Furthermore, arrays offer the advantage of parallelizing processes, resulting in significant time and cost savings.