Precise transportation of single cell by phase-shift standing surface acoustic wave

Precise transportation of bioparticles has become an increasingly important technique for numerous lab-on-a-chip bioengineering researches and applications, including cell fusion, gene transfection, and blood separation. In this paper, we develop a microfluidic device combination a SAW device and a PDMS microchannel to precisely transport the single cell. When the single cell suspended in standing wave field, the cell would be retained in the pressure nodes. By introducing a phase-shift to standing surface acoustic wave (SSAW), the translation of pressure nodes in the standing wave field results in the transportation of the single cell. The experimental results reveal that there is a good linear relationship between the relative phase and the displacement. This technique has its distinct advantages, such as precise position-manipulation, simple to implement, miniature size, and noninvasive character, which may provide an effective method for the position-manipulation of a single cell in many biological and biomedical applications.