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Over the years, a diverse range of physical and chemical phenomena have been explored and applied to devise reliable, small thrusters for stationkeeping and orientation of spacecraft. Commercial space flight is accelerating this need. Here, we consider acoustically driven melting of a frozen working fluid in the nozzle of an acoustic device, followed by acoustofluidic atomization from the nozzle to produce thrust. Fifty-five MHz acoustic waves generated by piezoelectric transducers couple into liquid and transfer energy in the form of both acoustic radiation and streaming, producing a directed atomized spray. A challenge in this system, as with most liquid-thrust systems, is the risk of phase change due to the extreme thermal environment in space, particularly in the freezing of the working fluid. Though acoustic energy is known to produce rapid and controllable heating, it so far has not been used to produce phase changes. The atomization produces capillary pressure sufficient to draw in fluid from a reservoir, though we do use a simple pressure-driven pump to support greater atomization rates. We provide a simple energy conservation model to explain the acoustothermal interaction and validate this with experiments. The specific impulse and thrust of this type of thruster are quite modest at 0.1–0.4 s and 12.3 μN, respectively, but the thruster component is small, light, and is without moving parts, a fascinating potential alternative to current technologies.

The growing interest in acoustic manipulation of particles in micro to nanofluidics using surface acoustic waves, together with the many applications of magnetic nanoparticles—whether individual or in arrays—underpins our discovery of how these forces can be used to rapidly, easily, and irreversibly form 1D chains and 2D films. These films and chains are difficult to produce by other methods yet offer many advantages over suspensions of individual nanoparticles by making use of the scale of the structures formed, 10−9 to 10−5 m, and by taking a balance of the relevant external and interparticle forces, the underlying mechanisms responsible for the phenomena become apparent. For loosely connected 1D chains, the magnetic field alone is sufficient, though applying an acoustic field drives a topology change to interconnected loops of ∼10–100 particles. Increasing the acoustic field intensity drives a transition from these looped structures to dense 2D arrays via interparticle Bjerknes forces. Inter-particle drainage of the surrounding fluid leaves these structures intact after removal of the externally applied forces. The self-evident morphology transitions depend solely upon the relative amplitudes of the Brownian, Bjerknes, and magnetic forces.

A method for measuring the spatial variation of the macroscopic poling state of a piezoelectric material using an ultrasonic transducer is described. The relatively simple method clearly indicates the distribution of poling within the material, demonstrated by the testing of a collection of partially poled lead zirconate titanate samples. © 2001 American Institute of Physics.

A 240-μm diameter ultrasonic micromotor is presented as a potential solution for an especially difficult task in minimally invasive neurosurgery, navigating a guidewire to an injury in the neurovasculature as the first step of surgery. The peak no-load angular velocity and maximum torque were 600 rad/s and 1.6 nN-m, respectively, and we obtained rotation about all three axes. By using a burst drive scheme, open-loop position and speed control were achieved. The construction method and control scheme proposed in this study remove most of the current limitations in minimally invasive, catheter-based actuation, enabling minimally invasive vascular surgery concepts to be pursued for a broad variety of applications. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.

A surface acoustic wave (SAW) actuated rotary motor is reported here, consisting of a millimeter-sized spherical metal rotor placed on the surface of a lead zirconate titanate piezoelectric substrate upon which the SAW is made to propagate. At the design frequency of 3.2 MHz and with a fixed preload of 41.1 μN, the maximum rotational speed and torque achieved were approximately 1900 rpm and 5.37 μN-mm, respectively, producing a maximum output power of 1.19 μW. The surface vibrations were visualized using laser Doppler vibrometry and indicate that the rotational motion arises due to retrograde elliptical motions of the piezoelectric surface elements. Rotation about orthogonal axes in the plane of the substrate has been obtained by using orthogonally placed interdigital electrodes on the substrate to generate SAW impinging on the rotor, offering a means to generate rotation about an arbitrary axis in the plane of the substrate.

We report on the design of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) driven fluid-coupled micromotor which runs at high rotational velocities. A pair of opposing SAWs generated on a lithium niobate substrate are each obliquely passed into either side of a fluid drop to drive rotation of the fluid, and the thin circular disk set on the drop. Using water for the drop, a 5 mm diameter disk was driven with rotation speeds and start-up torques up to 2250 rpm and 60 nN m, respectively. Most importantly for lab-on-a-chip applications, radial accelerations of 172 m/s2 was obtained, presenting possibilities for microcentrifugation, flow sequencing, assays, and cell culturing in truly microscale lab-on-a-chip devices.

Smoke particles (SPs) are used to directly visualize surface acoustic waves (SAWs) propagating on a 128°-rotated Y-cut X-propagating lithium niobate (LiNb O3) substrate. By electrically exciting a SAW device in a compartment filled with SP, the SP were found to collect along the regions where the SAW propagates on the substrate. The results of the experiments show that SPs are deposited adjacent to regions of large vibration amplitude and form a clear pattern corresponding to the surface wave profile on the substrate. Through an analysis of the SAW-induced acoustic streaming in the air adjacent to the substrate and the surface acceleration measured with a laser Doppler vibrometer, we postulate that the large transverse surface accelerations due to the SAW ejects SP from the surface and carries them aloft to relatively quiescent regions nearby via acoustic streaming. Offering finer detail than fine powders common in Chladni figures [E. Chladni, Entdeckungen über die Theorie des Klanges (Weidmanns, Erben und Reich, Leipzig, Germany, 1787)] the approach is an inexpensive and a quick counterpart to laser interferometric techniques, presenting a means to explore the controversial phenomena of particle agglomeration on surfaces. © 2007 American Institute of Physics.