Analysis and design of a Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) device

Abstract

This paper aims to do analysis on the area of Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) device and to design a SAW device with a simple function to generate a movement of micro-particles suspended in a droplet. SAW devices have been majorly involved in many different applications such as electronic components, radio and television, geophysics and microfluidics. In the recent years, SAW device application in microfluidics have opened up new possibilities, such as ability to manipulate mirco-scale particles and fluids precisely. This plays a significant role in lab-on-chip applications in chemistry, engineering, medicine and biology. There are many advantages SAW device in microfluidics provide; simple design and fabrication, versatility, compact and cheap device, contact-free manipulation, etc. In order to better understand SAW device properties, a section of SAW device model was used to do the resonance frequency and frequency domain analysis using the software COMSOL Multiphysic. A linear relationship among the frequency, current and displacement of the surface acoustic wave generated in the model was found. SAW device was then designed using licensed software, L-Edit in which 2 different sized electrodes SAW device were designed and then fabricated using the process of photolithography. The objective of this project was to do a simple experiment after fabricating the SAW device. Once the device was completed, micro-particles suspended in droplet fluids were rotated using the device by generated surface acoustic wave. Though the project was only aimed to do a simple function, the applications in microfluidics it could potentially be applied to, is endless.