Understand and control acoustic streaming in micro channels

I will study basic phenomena in fluid dynamics and acoustics to push the limits of acoustic focusing technology to facilitate fractionation and isolation of biological nanoparticles.Handling of particles in the sub micrometre regime is important in many biochemical and biomedical applications, such as the study of the interaction between cells and bacteria or nanoparticles, sample enrichment in diagnostics and in bioassays.

Despite the wide use and impact of nano and micro particles in the Life Sciences, very limited means of isolating or separating sub-micron bioparticles from complex suspensions are at hand.I will exploit ultrasound forces exerted on particles inside microfluidic chips to sort and trap extracellular vesicles while flowing past a sequence of ultrasound fields.

The core challenge is that the sizes of these biological particles are below the current size limit reachable by this technology.

Therefore, I will study the main limiting factor, acoustic streaming, and apply new approaches for streaming suppression.

The project will also render new knowledge of the acoustic properties of sub-micron sized biological particles, new methods to measure acoustic fields inside microfluidic channels, and develop a microfabrication method for acoustofluidic microfluidic devices.