Digital acoustofluidics enables contactless and programmable liquid handling

Nat Commun. 2018 Jul 26;9(1):2928. doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-05297-z.

Abstract

For decades, scientists have pursued the goal of performing automated reactions in a compact fluid processor with minimal human intervention. Most advanced fluidic handling technologies (e.g., microfluidic chips and micro-well plates) lack fluid rewritability, and the associated benefits of multi-path routing and re-programmability, due to surface-adsorption-induced contamination on contacting structures. This limits their processing speed and the complexity of reaction test matrices. We present a contactless droplet transport and processing technique called digital acoustofluidics which dynamically manipulates droplets with volumes from 1 nL to 100 µL along any planar axis via acoustic-streaming-induced hydrodynamic traps, all in a contamination-free (lower than 10-10% diffusion into the fluorinated carrier oil layer) and biocompatible (99.2% cell viability) manner. Hence, digital acoustofluidics can execute reactions on overlapping, non-contaminated, fluidic paths and can scale to perform massive interaction matrices within a single device.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Acoustics*
  • Humans
  • Hydrodynamics
  • Microfluidic Analytical Techniques
  • Microfluidics / methods*