Mechanical and Civil Engineering Seminar

The discovery of the usefulness of ultrasound in microfluidics has spawned a broad range of worldwide research activity, from fluid pumping and drop splitting to cell manipulation and pulmonary drug delivery. The transmission of intense, MHz to GHz-order ultrasound gives rise to remarkably powerful fluid flow and particle forces, and due to the high frequencies, the wavelengths of the ultrasound are commensurate with the scales of most microfluidics devices. This talk will cover some of these microscale phenomena, but will move quickly to peculiar results seen at the 1–100 nm scale. We explore nanoparticle manipulation and fluid manipulation in nanoslit devices, demonstrating the idea that the potential benefit of ultrasound does not end at the microscale. We show the ability to induce non-laminar flow phenomena and flow enhancement in sub 50-nm channels, and explore large molecule separation phenomena. The underlying principles responsible for these phenomena will be highlighted alongside their potential practical applications.