Fig. 4

Image sequences depicting the robot-assisted acoustofluidic device executing automated patterns (here the red marking represents the path of the capillary tip and yellow concentric circles represents the vortex generated) (see Supplementary Movie 6): a a rectangle, b an hourglass, and c letters creating the acronym “ETH.” d Photograph showing the RAEE-based microfluidic liquid pump, comprised of an acoustofluidic device and a 3D-printed PDMS-based fluidic channel (see Supplementary Movie 10). d Transformation of the mobile microvortex into a LOC micropump upon immersion of the acoustofluidic device into a 3D-printed spiral fluidic channel. e The vortices produced at an excitation frequency of 134 kHz and amplitude of 10 V_PP generated liquid pumping in the left-to-right direction (the magenta circle represents the capillary tip position and yellow arrow represents the liquid pumping direction) (see Supplementary Movie 10). The top inset demonstrates the pumping mechanism (here the red arrow represents the direction of particle motion in that region). The bottom inset illustrates the COMSOL simulation of fluid pumping when the capillary tip was introduced adjacent to the wall. Scale bar a–c: 400 µm, scale bar d: 10 mm, scale bar e: 200 µm.