Flowing microbubble manipulation in blood vessel phantom using ultrasonic standing wave with stepwise frequency

An approach was demonstrated to gather, fix, and controllably shift flowing microbubbles in a blood vessel phantom. An ultrasonic standing wave field was generated by the superposition of the emission of a 5 MHz conventional transducer and the reflection from a bone surface. The acoustic radiation force gathered flowing microbubbles into the nodes, fixed some accumulated microbubble clusters in the flow condition, and shifted microbubbles to target site with stepwise frequency. The resolution of microbubble shift was approximately 4 μm, and the low acoustic pressure range was from 4 to 16 kPa to avoid microbubble rupture.