Particle/cell manipulation and sorting with surface acoustic waves in a microfluidic device

Microfluidic manipulation technology based on surface acoustic waves (SAWs) has great potential for improving biomedical and clinical practices including drug screening, sorting, and isolation of rare cells on a single-cell level via an induced acoustic force with high biocompatibility. However, previous works on the manipulation of particles/cells using acoustic methods primarily base on their intrinsic characteristics. Characteristics such as size and acoustic contrast offer low versatility and flexibility in applications for comprehensive sample treatments. Here we investigated the mechanical properties of particles and cells in response to SAWs in a microfluidic device, in which particles/cells deflect away from the main stream. In addition, the manipulation of water droplets in oil phase was also demonstrated, extending the fields of our interests to droplet microfluidics. We expect the results to be useful for high-throughput cell sorting in various biomedical-analytical settings.