Thermal Management of SSAW Acoustofluidic Devices: Experimental and Numerical Analysis

Acoustofluidic devices use Surface Acoustic Waves (SAWs) to handle small fluid volumes and manipulate nanoparticles and biological cells with high precision. However, SAWs can cause significant heat generation and temperature rises in acoustofluidic systems, posing a critical challenge for biological and other applications. In this work, we studied temperature distribution in a Standing Surface Acoustic Wave (SSAW)-based PDMS microfluidic device both experimentally and numerically. We investigated the relative contribution of Joule and acoustic dissipation heat sources. We investigated the acoustofluidic device in two heat dissipation configurations-with and without the heat sink-and demonstrated that, without the heat sink the temperatures inside the microchannel increased by 43 °C at 15 V. Adding the metallic heat sink significantly reduced the temperature rise to only 3 °C or less at lower voltages. This approach enabled the effective manipulation and alignment of nanoparticles at applied voltages up to 15 V while maintaining low temperatures, which is crucial for temperature-sensitive biological applications. Our findings provide new insights for understanding the heat generation mechanisms and temperature distribution in acoustofluidic devices and offer a straightforward strategy for the thermal management of devices.