Valveless micropump driven by acoustic streaming

Abstract

This paper describes two valveless micropumps built on a 260 µm thick PZT with 20 µm thick parylene acoustic Fresnel lenses with air cavities. The micropumps produce in-plane body force through acoustic streaming effect of high-intensity acoustic beam that is generated by acoustic wave interference. The fabricated micropumps were shown to move microspheres, which have a diameter of 70–90 µm and a density of 0.99 g cm−3, on the water surface to form U-shape streams of microspheres with a drift velocity of 7.3 cm s−1 when the micropumps were located 4 mm below the water surface and driven by 160 Vpeak-to-peak pulsed sinusoidal waves. The driven microspheres formed U-shape streaming even without any fluidic channel according to the serial connection of the pie-shaped lenses and top electrodes. A micropump with a straight-lined fluidic channel was also fabricated and tested to show a 9.2 cm s−1 microspheres' drift velocity and a 9.5 mL min−1 volume pumping rate when combined with the acrylic acoustic wave reflector. Both the Fresnel lens and top electrode were patterned in a pie-shape with its apex angle of 90° to form asymmetric acoustic pressure distribution at the focal plane of the acoustic Fresnel lenses in order to push water in one direction.