Controlling non-inertial cavitation microstreaming for applications in biomedical research

Within this paper non-inertial cavitation microstreaming is investigated as a method for applying a mechanical stress to biological cells in vitro. A microfluidic device is designed in which microstreaming generated around microbubbles adhered to the floor of the acoustic chamber can be targeted at cells. The repeatability and controllability of microstreaming are investigated by computing μPIV vector fields of microstreaming flows. The uniformity of the acoustic pressure field in the x-y plane of the acoustic chamber is characterized by measuring the prevalence of microstreaming throughout the device.