Numerical and experimental trapping analysis of simple and cost-effective acoustic tweezers

Abstract

Acoustic Force Spectroscopy (AFS) is a versatile tool that uses sound waves to manipulate tiny particles such as cells, bacteria, and even zebrafish embryos in microfluidic systems. This kind of acoustic tweezer is gaining increasing attention due to its high throughput capability and non-invasiveness. In addition, this device allows for parallel manipulation of bio-molecules. Therefore, it can provide statistically significant data about the DNA replication process, which is widely considered a stochastic process. Understanding the dynamics of the DNA replication process plays a vital role in developing medicine to cure diseases that are still incurable today. Most single-molecule techniques, such as optical tweezers, magnetic tweezers, and atomic force microscopy, can only manipulate a limited number of particles simultaneously. Therefore, obtaining statistically significant data with these methods is laborious, time-consuming, and expensive. This report describes the design, fabrication, simulation and characterization of an easy-tobuild and cost-effective acoustic tweezer. The trapping stiffness of this device is derived from finite element modelling and experiments. This property is used to benchmark the acoustic tweezer developed in this project against other microparticle manipulation devices found in the literature. The results show that the acoustic tweezer developed in this project provides sufficient trap stiffness for studying DNA replication.