Surface acoustic wave electric field effect on acoustic streaming: Numerical analysis

The paper numerically studies the contribution of the electric field accompanying the surface acoustic wave to the actuation of the acoustic streaming in microchannels. The finite element method is used. The results obtained as applied to the surface waves on 128° and 64°-rotated Y cuts of LiNbO3 demonstrate that the force created by the electric field is capable of accelerating appreciably the acoustic streaming. In particular, examples are given for the situations where the electric field increases the streaming velocity by a factor of about 2–3 and significantly changes the flow pattern as compared to predictions of computations ignoring the electric field.