High-speed and acceleration micrometric jets induced by GHz streaming: A numerical study with direct numerical simulations.

Gigahertz acoustic streaming enables the synthesis of localized microjets reaching speeds of up to meters per second, offering tremendous potential for precision micromanipulation. However, theoretical and numerical investigations of acoustic streaming at these frequencies remain so far relatively scarce due to significant challenges including: (i) the inappropriateness of classical approaches, rooted in asymptotic development, for addressing high-speed streaming with flow velocities comparable to the acoustic velocity; and (ii) the numerical cost of direct numerical simulations generally considered as prohibitive. In this paper, we investigate high-frequency bulk streaming using high-order finite difference direct numerical simulations. First, we demonstrate that high-speed micrometric jets of several meters per second can only be obtained at high frequencies, due to diffraction limits. Second, we establish that the maximum jet streaming speed at a given actuation power scales with the frequency to the power of 3/2 in the low attenuation limit and linearly with the frequency for strongly attenuated waves. Last, our analysis of transient regimes reveals a dramatic reduction in the time required to reach the maximum velocity as the frequency increases (power law in -5/2), leading to characteristic time on the order of µs at gigahertz frequencies, and hence accelerations within the Mega-g range.

Oscillations and Cavity Modes in the Circular Hydraulic Jump.

We report spontaneous oscillations of circular hydraulic jumps created by the impact of a submillimeter water jet on a solid disk. The jet flow rate is shown to condition the occurrence of the oscillations while their period is independent of this parameter. The period, however, varies linearly with the disk radius. This dependency is rationalized by investigating surface gravity wave modes in the cavity formed by the disk. We show that the jump oscillation frequency systematically matches one of the surface wave disk-cavity eigenfrequencies, leading to the conclusion that the oscillations are self-induced by the interaction between the jump and surface wave eigenmodes.

Equivalence between angular spectrum-based and multipole expansion-based formulas of the acoustic radiation force and torque.

Two main methods have been proposed to derive the acoustical radiation force and torque applied by an arbitrary acoustic field on a particle: The first one relies on the plane wave angular spectrum decomposition of the incident field (see Sapozhnikov and Bailey [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 133, 661-676 (2013)] for the force and Gong and Baudoin [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 148, 3131-3140 (2020)] for the torque), while the second one relies on the decomposition of the incident field into a sum of spherical waves, the so-called multipole expansion (see Silva [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 130, 3541-3544 (2011)] and Baresch, Thomas, and Marchiano [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 133, 25-36 (2013)] for the force, and Silva, Lobo, and Mitri [Europhys. Lett. 97, 54003 (2012)] and Gong, Marston, and Li [Phys. Rev. Appl. 11, 064022 (2019)] for the torque). In this paper, we formally establish the equivalence between the expressions obtained with these two methods for both the force and torque.

Acoustic radiation torque on a particle in a fluid: An angular spectrum based compact expression.

In this work, a set of compact analytical formulas is derived expressing the three-dimensional acoustic radiation torque (ART) exerted on a particle of arbitrary shape embedded in a fluid and insonified by an arbitrary acoustic field. This formulation enables direct computation of the ART from the angular spectrum based beam shape coefficients introduced by Sapozhnikov and Bailey [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 133, 661-676 (2013)] and the partial wave coefficients. It is particularly well suited to determine the ART exerted on a particle when the acoustic field is known in a source plane.

Motion of Long Levitating Drops in Tubes in an Anti-Bretherton Configuration.

In his seminal paper, Bretherton studied the motion of long bubbles in capillary tubes. Here, we unveil the negative configuration wherein a long liquid drop is stably transported in a capillary tube and surrounded by a flow-induced air cushion. These drops are formed when a liquid plug is pushed above a critical velocity sufficient to induce an inversion of the front meniscus with a radius of curvature smaller than the tube radius. The drop shape and lubricating air film thickness is reminiscent of Bretherton's calculation and can be inferred from an adapted analytical theory.

Spatially selective manipulation of cells with single-beam acoustical tweezers.

Acoustical tweezers open major prospects in microbiology for cells and microorganisms contactless manipulation, organization and mechanical properties testing since they are biocompatible, label-free and have the potential to exert forces several orders of magnitude larger than their optical counterpart at equivalent power. Yet, these perspectives have so far been hindered by the absence of spatial selectivity of existing acoustical tweezers - i.e., the ability to select and move objects individually - and/or their limited resolution restricting their use to large particle manipulation only and/or finally the limited forces that they could apply. Here, we report precise selective manipulation and positioning of individual human cells in a standard microscopy environment with trapping forces up to ~200 pN without altering their viability. These results are obtained with miniaturized acoustical tweezers combining holography with active materials to synthesize specific wavefields called focused acoustical vortices designed to produce stiff localized traps with reduced acoustic power.

Acoustic Sensing of Forces Driving Fast Capillary Flows.

The popping sound of a bursting soap bubble is acquired using microphone arrays and analyzed using spherical harmonics decomposition. Using the theoretical framework of aeroacoustics, we demonstrate that this acoustic emission originates mainly from the capillary stresses exerted by the liquid soap film on the air and that it quantitatively reflects the out-of-equilibrium evolution of the flowing liquid film. This constitutes the proof of concept that the acoustic signature of violent events of physical or biological origin could be used to measure the forces at play during these events.

Folding a focalized acoustical vortex on a flat holographic transducer: Miniaturized selective acoustical tweezers.

Acoustical tweezers based on focalized acoustical vortices hold the promise of precise contactless manipulation of millimeter down to submicrometer particles, microorganisms, and cells with unprecedented combined selectivity and trapping force. Yet, the widespread dissemination of this technology has been hindered by severe limitations of current systems in terms of performance and/or miniaturization and integrability. Here, we unleash the potential of focalized acoustical vortices by developing the first flat, compact, paired single electrode focalized acoustical tweezers. These tweezers rely on spiraling transducers obtained by folding a spherical acoustical vortex on a flat piezoelectric substrate. We demonstrate the ability of these tweezers to grab and displace micrometric objects in a standard microfluidic environment with unique selectivity. The simplicity of this system and its scalability to higher frequencies open tremendous perspectives in microbiology, microrobotics, and microscopy.

Inverse Saffman-Taylor Experiments with Particles Lead to Capillarity Driven Fingering Instabilities.

Using air to displace a viscous fluid contained in a Hele-Shaw cell can create a fingering pattern at the interface between the fluids if the capillary number exceeds a critical value. This Saffman-Taylor instability is revisited for the inverse case of a viscous fluid displacing air when partially wettable hydrophilic particles are lying on the walls. Though the inverse case is otherwise stable, the presence of the particles results in a fingering instability at low capillary number. This capillary-driven instability is driven by the integration of particles into the interface which results from the minimization of the interfacial energy. Both axisymmetric and rectangular geometries are considered in order to quantify this phenomenon.

Increased resistance to detachment of adherent microspheres and Bacillus spores subjected to a drying step.

In various environments, including that of food processing, adherent bacteria are often subjected to drying conditions. These conditions have been shown to result in changes in the ability of biofilms to cross-contaminate food in contact with them. In this study, we investigated the consequences of a drying step on the further ability of adherent bacterial spores to resist detachment. An initial series of experiment was set up with latex microspheres as a model. A microsphere suspension was deposited on a glass slide and incubated at 25, 35 and 50°C for times ranging from 1h to 48h. By subjecting the dried slides to increasing water flow rates, we showed that both time and temperature affected the ease of microsphere detachment. Similar observations were made for three Bacillus spores despite differences in their surface properties, especially regarding their surface physicochemistry. The differences in ease of adherent spore detachment could not be clearly linked to the minor changes in spore morphology, observed after drying in various environmental conditions. In order to explain the increased interaction between spheres or spores and glass slides, the authors made several assumptions regarding the possible underlying mechanisms: the shape of the liquid bridge between the sphere and the substratum, which is greatly influenced by the hydrophilic/hydrophobic characters of both surfaces; the accumulation of soil at the liquid/air interface; the presence of trapped nano-bubbles around and/or under the sphere.

SAW Synthesis With IDTs Array and the Inverse Filter: Toward a Versatile SAW Toolbox for Microfluidics and Biological Applications.

Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) are versatile tools to manipulate fluids at small scales for microfluidics and biological applications. A nonexhaustive list of operations that can be performed with SAW includes sessile droplet displacement, atomization, division, and merging but also the actuation of fluids embedded in microchannels or the manipulation of suspended particles. However, each of these operations requires a specific design of the wave generation system, the so-called interdigitated transducers (IDTs). Depending on the application, it might indeed be necessary to generate focused or plane, propagating or standing, and aligned or shifted waves. Furthermore, the possibilities offered by more complex wave fields such as acoustical vortices for particle tweezing and liquid twisting cannot be explored with classical IDTs. In this paper, we show that the inverse filter technique coupled with an IDTs array enables us to synthesize all classical wave fields used in microfluidics and biological applications with a single multifunctional platform. It also enables us to generate swirling SAWs, whose potential for the on-chip synthesis of tailored acoustical vortices has been demonstrated lately. The possibilities offered by this platform are illustrated by performing many operations successively on sessile droplets with the same system.

Taming the degeneration of Bessel beams at an anisotropic-isotropic interface: Toward three-dimensional control of confined vortical waves.

Despite their self-reconstruction properties in heterogeneous media, Bessel beams are known to degenerate when they are refracted from an isotropic to an anisotropic medium. In this paper, we study the converse situation wherein an anisotropic Bessel beam is refracted into an isotropic medium. It is shown that these anisotropic Bessel beams also degenerate, leading to confined vortical waves that may serve as localized particle trap for acoustical tweezers. The linear nature of this degeneration allows the three-dimensional control of this trap position by wavefront correction. Theory is confronted to experiments performed in the field of acoustics. A swirling surface acoustic wave is synthesized at the surface of a piezoelectric crystal by a microelectromechanical integrated system and radiated inside a miniature liquid vessel. The wavefront correction is operated with inverse filter technique. This work opens perspectives for contactless on-chip manipulation devices.

Capillary tube wetting induced by particles: towards armoured bubbles tailoring.

In this paper, we report on the strongly modified dynamics of a liquid finger pushed inside a capillary tube, when partially wettable particles are lying on the walls. Particles promote the appearance of new regimes and enable the tailored synthesis of bubbles encapsulated in a monolayer of particles (so-called "armoured bubbles"). This remarkable behavior arises due to the collection of particles at the air-liquid interface, which modify the global energy balance and stabilize the interface. Armoured-bubbles are of primary interest in industrial processes since they display increased stability, interfacial rigidity and can even sustain non-spherical shapes. This work opens perspective for a low cost bubbles-on-demand technology enabling the synthesis of armoured bubbles with specific sizes, shapes and composition.

Cyclones and attractive streaming generated by acoustical vortices.

Acoustical and optical vortices have attracted great interest due to their ability to capture and manipulate particles with the use of radiation pressure. Here we show that acoustical vortices can also induce axial vortical flow reminiscent of cyclones, whose topology can be controlled by adjusting the properties of the acoustical beam. In confined geometry, the phase singularity enables generating "attractive streaming" with the flow directed toward the transducer. This opens perspectives for contactless vortical flow control.

Cell detachment and label-free cell sorting using modulated surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in droplet-based microfluidics.

We present a droplet-based surface acoustic wave (SAW) system designed to viably detach biological cells from a surface and sort cell types based on differences in adhesion strength (adhesion contrast) without the need to label cells with molecular markers. The system uses modulated SAW to generate pulsatile flows in the droplets and efficiently detach the cells, thereby minimizing the SAW excitation power and exposure time. As a proof of principle, the system shows efficient sorting of HEK 293 from A7r5 cells based on adhesion contrast. Results are obtained in minutes with sorting purity and efficiency reaching 97% and 95%, respectively.

Airway reopening through catastrophic events in a hierarchical network.

When you reach with your straw for the final drops of a milkshake, the liquid forms a train of plugs that flow slowly initially because of the high viscosity. They then suddenly rupture and are replaced with a rapid airflow with the characteristic slurping sound. Trains of liquid plugs also are observed in complex geometries, such as porous media during petroleum extraction, in microfluidic two-phase flows, or in flows in the pulmonary airway tree under pathological conditions. The dynamics of rupture events in these geometries play the dominant role in the spatial distribution of the flow and in determining how much of the medium remains occluded. Here we show that the flow of a train of plugs in a straight channel is always unstable to breaking through a cascade of ruptures. Collective effects considerably modify the rupture dynamics of plug trains: Interactions among nearest neighbors take place through the wetting films and slow down the cascade, whereas global interactions, through the total resistance to flow of the train, accelerate the dynamics after each plug rupture. In a branching tree of microchannels, similar cascades occur along paths that connect the input to a particular output. This divides the initial tree into several independent subnetworks, which then evolve independently of one another. The spatiotemporal distribution of the cascades is random, owing to strong sensitivity to the plug divisions at the bifurcations.

Sound, infrasound, and sonic boom absorption by atmospheric clouds.

This study quantifies the influence of atmospheric clouds on propagation of sound and infrasound, based on an existing model [Gubaidulin and Nigmatulin, Int. J. Multiphase Flow 26, 207-228 (2000)]. Clouds are considered as a dilute and polydisperse suspension of liquid water droplets within a mixture of dry air and water vapor, both considered as perfect gases. The model is limited to low and medium altitude clouds, with a small ice content. Four physical mechanisms are taken into account: viscoinertial effects, heat transfer, water phase changes (evaporation and condensation), and vapor diffusion. Physical properties of atmospheric clouds (altitude, thickness, water content and droplet size distribution) are collected, along with values of the thermodynamical coefficients. Different types of clouds have been selected. Quantitative evaluation shows that, for low audible and infrasound frequencies, absorption within clouds is several orders of magnitude larger than classical absorption. The importance of phase changes and vapor diffusion is outlined. Finally, numerical simulations for nonlinear propagation of sonic booms indicate that, for thick clouds, attenuation can lead to a very large decay of the boom at the ground level.

Scattering of ultrasonic shock waves in suspensions of silica nanoparticles.

Experiments are carried out to assess, for the first time, the validity of a generalized Burgers' equation, introduced first by Davidson [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 54, 1331-1342 (1973)] to compute the nonlinear propagation of finite amplitude acoustical waves in suspensions of "rigid" particles. Silica nanoparticles of two sizes (33 and 69 nm) have been synthesized in a water-ethanol mixture and precisely characterized via electron microscopy. An acoustical beam of high amplitude is generated at 1 MHz inside a water tank, leading to the formation of acoustical shock waves through nonlinear steepening. The signal is then measured after propagation in a cylinder containing either a reference solution or suspensions of nanoparticles. In this way, a "nonlinear attenuation" is obtained and compared to the numerical solution of a generalized Burgers' equation adapted to the case of hydrosols. An excellent agreement (corresponding to an error on the particles size estimation of 3 nm) is achieved in the frequency range from 1 to 40 MHz. Both visco-inertial and thermal scattering are significant in the present case, whereas thermal effects can generally be neglected for most hydrosols. This is due to the value of the specific heat ratio of water-ethanol mixture which significantly differs from unity.

The air-liquid flow in a microfluidic airway tree.

Microfluidic techniques are employed to investigate air-liquid flows in the lung. A network of microchannels with five generations is made and used as a simplified model of a section of the pulmonary airway tree. Liquid plugs are injected into the network and pushed by a flow of air; they divide at every bifurcation until they reach the exits of the network. A resistance, associated with the presence of one plug in a given generation, is defined to establish a linear relation between the driving pressure and the total flow rate in the network. Based on this resistance, good predictions are obtained for the flow of two successive plugs in different generations. The total flow rate of a two-plug flow is found to depend not only on the driving pressure and lengths of the plugs, but also the initial distance between them. Furthermore, long range interactions between daughters of a dividing plug are observed and discussed, particularly when the plugs are flowing through the bifurcations. These interactions lead to different flow patterns for different forcing conditions: the flow develops symmetrically when subjected to constant pressure or high flow rate forcing, while a low flow rate driving yields an asymmetric flow.

On the influence of spatial correlations on sound propagation in concentrated solutions of rigid particles.

In a previous paper [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 121, 3386-3387 (2007)], a self-consistent effective medium theory has been used to account for hydrodynamic interactions between neighboring rigid particles, which considerably affect the sound propagation in concentrated solutions. However, spatial correlations were completely left out in this model. They correspond to the fact that the presence of one particle at a given position locally affects the location of the other ones. In the present work, the importance of such correlations is demonstrated within a certain frequency range and particle concentration. For that purpose, spatial correlations are integrated in our two-phase formulation by using a closure scheme similar to the one introduced by Spelt et al. [''Attenuation of sound in concentrated suspensions theory and experiments," J. Fluid Mech. 430, 51-86 (2001)]. Then, the effect is shown through a careful comparison of the results obtained with this model, the ones obtained with different self-consistent approximations and the experiments performed by Hipp et al. ["Acoustical characterization of concentrated suspensions and emulsions. 2. Experimental validation," Langmuir, 18, 391-404 (2002)]. With the present formulation, an excellent agreement is reached for all frequencies (within the limit of the long wavelength regime) and for concentrations up to 30% without any adjustable parameter.