PARTICLE SORTING WITH SURFACE ACOUSTIC WAVES (SAW) FOR A FULLY INTEGRATED MICROFLUIDIC FLOW CYTOMETER
Open Access
Author:
Pisupati, Karthik
Area of Honors:
Bioengineering
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Jun Huang, Thesis Supervisor Jun Huang, Thesis Supervisor Dr. William O Hancock, Thesis Honors Advisor Siyang Zheng, Faculty Reader
Keywords:
microfluidic surface acoustic wave sorting
Abstract:
Flow cytometry and fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) are powerful analytical techniques with applications in a variety of fields, but restricted to use in specialty settings. Realizing a microfluidic flow cytometer would greatly improve the accessibility of this technology, as this would make the device portable and easily mass producible. In this thesis cell sorting techniques are reviewed in the microfluidic domain and the feasibility of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) driven sorting technique is examined. Standard soft lithography techniques were used to fabricate PDMS channels and standard surface micromachining techniques were used to fabricate inter-digitated transducers (IDT) on a piezoelectric substrate for surface acoustic wave (SAW) generation. A 3-D focused flow system with focused IDT was characterized for its particle sorting abilities with microbeads, analogous to blood cells in size and density, at varying power levels from -1dBm to 0.5 dBm. The results indicated the particles displace proportionally to the applied power. Theoretical calculations about forces and particle displacement were also considered to further understand the device functionality. The device demonstrated the ability to laterally displace particles and could ultimately be used for cell sorting purpose in a fully integrated microfluidic flow cytometer.