Dexterous acoustic trapping and patterning of particles assisted by phononic crystal plate

Abstract

In this letter, we present experimental demonstration of multi-particles trapping and patterning by the artificially engineered acoustic field of phononic crystal plate. Polystyrene particles are precisely trapped and patterned in two dimensional arrays, for example, the square, triangular, or quasi-periodic arrays, depending on the structures of the phononic crystal plates with varying sub-wavelength holes array. Analysis shows that the enhanced acoustic radiation force, induced by the resonant transmission field highly localized near the sub-wavelength apertures, accounts for the particles self-organizing. It can be envisaged that this kind of simple design of phononic crystal plates would pave an alternative route for self-assembly of particles and may be utilized in the lab-on-a-chip devices.