Fig. 1. Schematics illustrating the mechanism of the JSAT for 6 fundamental single-cell manipulation.

a A schematic of a JSAT chip composed of a LiNbO₃ substrate deposited with an array of IDTs and a PDMS-based microfluidic chamber. The IDTs are organized into outer (“out”), middle (“mid”), and inner (“in”) segments, as indicated by superscripts, and are indexed by subscripts i, j, and k. The details of the IDT labels are given in Supplementary Fig. S1. This IDT array configuration generates controllable acoustic pressure fields and streaming patterns, allowing precise control of the multi-DoF motions of single cells in the microfluidic chamber. b, top Schematics illustrating the mechanisms of controlling 3D translations (u_x, u_y, and u_z) of an acoustically trapped cell. The in-plane translation u_x (or u_y) is achieved by shifting the pressure node position by changing the phase difference between input signals for ${\mathrm{IDT}}_1^{\mathrm{out}}$ and ${\mathrm{IDT}}_3^{\mathrm{out}}$ (or ${\mathrm{IDT}}_2^{\mathrm{out}}$ and ${\mathrm{IDT}}_4^{\mathrm{out}}$). The out-of-plane translation u_z is achieved by adjusting the time of input voltages for ${\mathrm{IDT}}_1^{\mathrm{out}}$ to ${\mathrm{IDT}}_4^{\mathrm{out}}$. b, bottom Schematics illustrating the mechanisms of controlling 3D rotations (θ_x, θ_y, and θ_z). To control the rotation θ_x (or θ_y) of an acoustically trapped cell, streaming vortices induced by standing SAWs generated from ${\mathrm{IDT}}_2^{\mathrm{mid}}$ and ${\mathrm{IDT}}_4^{\mathrm{mid}}$(or ${\mathrm{IDT}}_1^{\mathrm{mid}}$ and ${\mathrm{IDT}}_3^{\mathrm{mid}}$) are used. To control the cell rotation θ_z, a streaming vortex induced by traveling SAWs generated from IDTs of the inner subarray is adopted.