On-track single-particle manipulation by a point-driven vibrating plate

Po-Wei Lee^1*, Pi-Hui Tuan¹

¹Department of Physics, National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan

* Presenter:Po-Wei Lee, email:a7882909@gmail.com

Particle control based on acoustic techniques has been widely used in myriad applications such as microfluid pump, biomolecular cell patterning, and other Lab-on-a-chop experiments. One of the most historic and fascinating acoustic experiments to drive the particle motion is the vibrating plate system where the particle aggregation on the nodal lines of vibrating plate surface has been thoroughly explored by Ernst Chladni in 18th century. Recently, some researchers are inspired by the ancient but classic experiment to develop a novel vibration-based particle manipulation device. Since the vibrating plate can realize particle control with the economic and robust advantages, it deserves further exploration to improve its functionality and efficiency. In this work, we investigate the on-track manipulation of a heavy, submillimeter-size particle by a point-driven vibrating plate. With the constructed database of particle displacement fields under different vibrating modes by particle tracking velocimetry, an algorithm is designed to automatically search the optimum strategy of vibrating mode switching to drive the particle to move point-to-point toward the destination. By dividing the total route into multiple target points with an appropriate mutual distance, we further verify that the efficiency and accuracy of on-track particle manipulation can be greatly improved.

Keywords: Particle manipulation, Vibrating plates, Pattern formations, Resonant modes