Design of Acoustic Pillar Array Chip for Programmable Particle Sorting

This paper theoretically and experimentally demonstrates an acoustic-actuated pillar array chip (APAC) for parallel and controllable particle trapping. By altering the size, shape, and the layout of the pillar array, we can precisely program the trapping ability of the APAC system for size-dependent separation of bioparticles. We theoretically reveal the effect of pillar size on particle trapping. Our experiments show that a trapping of submicron particles is achieved at 639 kHz driving frequency. This chip provides an alternative solution to high-throughput and multi-level sorting of submicron particles, which is of vitally significance in bio-medical field.