Surface acoustic wave digital microfluidics with surface wettability gradient

Abstract

This paper reports a digital microfluidic technology that combines surface wettability gradient and surface acoustic waves. The technology enables selection of the driven object, facilitating reactions among multiple droplets and improving the precision of droplet control. Octagonal patterns with a wetting gradient and orthogonally distributed interdigital transducers were created on the surface of a LiNbO₃ wafer by photolithography. Leveraging the propagation characteristics of surface acoustic waves on different wetting models, the latter serve as a switch for microfluidic motion, successfully achieving selection of the driven object and demonstrating sequential reactions among multiple droplets. Also, under the excitation of standing surface acoustic waves, droplets on the wetting gradient surface move slightly in the direction of wetting gradient descent, significantly enhancing the positional accuracy of the droplets to the micrometer level. With the advantages of surface acoustic wave digital microfluidics, this technology addresses the challenges of multi-droplet digital manipulation and improved droplet positional accuracy.