Acoustic Manipulation in Microfluidic Systems

Acoustic manipulation in microfluidic systems exploits the interaction between sound waves and fluids to exert precise, contactless control over particles, droplets and cells. By generating acoustic radiation forces and microstreaming flows within confined channels, researchers can trap, concentrate, sort and transport targets without mechanical contact or labels. This approach benefits from biocompatibility, low heat generation and compatibility with optically opaque media. Advances in transducer design, from standing-wave resonators to electronically steered phased arrays, have enabled dynamic reconfiguration of acoustic fields on chip. Applications span single‐cell analysis, droplet handling, particle assembly and in vivo cell guidance, offering scalable solutions for biomedical diagnostics, materials synthesis and microrobotics.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent studies have shown that genetically engineered bacteria endowed with intracellular gas vesicles can be acoustically trapped and steered in vivo. By combining heterologous expression of contrast‐enhancing gene clusters with electronically steered phased‐array tweezers, these cells form clusters and navigate against blood flow in live models, opening avenues for targeted microbial therapies. Another foundational advance described an on‐chip acoustofluidic rotational device in which microbubbles confined within sidewall cavities generate microvortices under an ultrasonic field, allowing precise rotation of single cells and small organisms. This method requires no optical or magnetic labels and has been applied to biological assays in real time. A complementary development introduced digital acoustofluidics, a fully programmable droplet transport platform that manipulates volumes from nanolitres to microlitres via acoustic‐streaming‐induced hydrodynamic traps, enabling contamination‐free, reconfigurable routing of reagents and cells on a single chip.

Acoustic Manipulation in Microfluidic Systems publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in acoustic manipulation in microfluidic systems across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Acoustofluidics: Integration of acoustic fields with microfluidic channels to manipulate fluids and suspended targets.

Acoustic radiation force: Net force on a particle arising from momentum transfer by an acoustic wave.

Acoustic streaming: Steady fluid flows induced by absorption of acoustic energy in a liquid.

Standing wave: Stationary pressure pattern formed by the superposition of two counter-propagating waves.

Phased-array transducer: Device composed of multiple elements that can be individually driven to shape and steer acoustic beams.

References

1. In-vivo programmable acoustic manipulation of genetically engineered bacteria. Nature Communications (2023).
2. Rotational manipulation of single cells and organisms using acoustic waves. Nature Communications (2016).
3. Digital acoustofluidics enables contactless and programmable liquid handling. Nature Communications (2018).
4. Multi‐Frequency Ultrasound Directed Self‐Assembly. Advanced Functional Materials (2024).
5. Acoustofluidic separation of cells and particles. Microsystems & Nanoengineering (2019).
6. Folding a focalized acoustical vortex on a flat holographic transducer: Miniaturized selective acoustical tweezers. Science Advances (2019).