Submicron Particle and Cell Concentration in a Closed Chamber Surface Acoustic Wave Microcentrifuge

Preconcentrating particulate and cellular matter for their isolation or detection is often a necessary and critical sample preparation or purification step in many lab-on-a-chip diagnostic devices. While surface acoustic wave (SAW) microcentrifugation has been demonstrated as a powerful means to drive efficient particle concentration, this has primarily been limited to micron dimension particles. When the particle size is around 1 μm or below, studies on SAW microcentrifugation to date have shown that particle ring-like aggregates can only be obtained in contrast to the localized concentrated clusters that are obtained with larger particles. Considering the importance of submicron particles and bioparticles that are common in many real-world samples, we elucidate why previous studies have not been able to achieve the concentration of these smaller particles to completion, and we present a practical solution involving a novel closed chamber configuration that minimizes sample heating and eliminates evaporation to show that it is indeed possible to drive submicron particle and cell concentration down to 200 nm diameters with SAW microcentrifugation over longer durations.