Acoustic bubble sorting for ultrasound contrast agent enrichment

Lab Chip. 2014 May 21;14(10):1705-14. doi: 10.1039/c3lc51296g. Epub 2014 Mar 20.

Abstract

An ultrasound contrast agent (UCA) suspension contains encapsulated microbubbles with a wide size distribution, with radii ranging from 1 to 10 μm. Medical transducers typically operate at a single frequency, therefore only a small selection of bubbles will resonate to the driving ultrasound pulse. Thus, the sensitivity can be improved by narrowing down the size distribution. Here, we present a simple lab-on-a-chip method to sort the population of microbubbles on-chip using a traveling ultrasound wave. First, we explore the physical parameter space of acoustic bubble sorting using well-defined bubble sizes formed in a flow-focusing device, then we demonstrate successful acoustic sorting of a commercial UCA. This novel sorting strategy may lead to an overall improvement of the sensitivity of contrast ultrasound by more than 10 dB.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustics*
  • Contrast Media / chemistry*
  • Equipment Design
  • Lab-On-A-Chip Devices
  • Microbubbles*
  • Microfluidic Analytical Techniques / instrumentation
  • Models, Theoretical
  • Ultrasonics*

Substances

  • Contrast Media