3-D Acoustic Trapping With Standing Waves

Abstract: In this work, we will describe an experimental setup for a standing--wave ultrasound trap for air microbubbles in oil. We develop a model for the finite acoustic beam using the angular spectrum technique, and reconstruct the pressure field using the General Lorenz-Mie Theory framework, which was validated using a finite elements method (FEM) simulation. Using Stokes' drag law, we were able to obtain the radius of the trapped bubbles and estimate the minimum acoustic force necessary to trap them, which ranged from 3 nN to 780 nN. We also present the force profile as a function of distance for different bubble that were trapped experimentally, and show that a standing wave formed by interfering infinite plane waves cannot explain the observed acoustic trapping of bubbles in 3-D.