Ultrasonic-assisted liquid manipulation

Abstract

A phased array of ultrasonic transducers may create arbitrary fields that can be utilized to manipulate fluids. This includes the translation of drops on smooth surfaces as well speeding the evaporation of fluids on wetted hands. Proposed herein is the use airborne ultrasound focused to the surface of the hand. The risk is that coupling directly into the bulk of the hand may cause damage to the cellular material through heating, mechanical stress, or cavitation. Using a phased array, the focus may be moved around, thus preventing acoustic energy from lingering too long on one particular position of the hand. While some signaling may penetrate into the hand, most of the energy (99.9%) is reflected. Also disclosed are methods to couple just to the wetted surface of the hand.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.