Theory and experiment on resonant frequencies of liquid-air interfaces trapped in microfluidic devices

Abstract

Bubble-based microfluidic devices have been proven to be useful for many biological and chemical studies. These bubble-based microdevices are particularly useful when operated at the trapped bubbles' resonance frequencies. In this work, we present an analytical expression that can be used to predict the resonant frequency of a bubble trapped over an arbitrary shape. Also, the effect of viscosity on the dispersion characteristics of trapped bubbles is determined. A good agreement between experimental data and theoretical results is observed for resonant frequency of bubbles trapped over different-sized rectangular-shaped structures, indicating that our expression can be valuable in determining optimized operational parameters for many bubble-based microfluidic devices. Furthermore, we provide a close estimate for the harmonics and a method to determine the dispersion characteristics of a bubble trapped over circular shapes. Finally, we present a new method to predict fluid properties in microfluidic devices and complement the explanation of acoustic microstreaming.