Acoustokinetics: Organizing Soft Matter with Acoustic Holograms

Factoring the pressure field of a harmonic sound wave into its amplitude and phase profiles provides the foundation for an analytical framework for studying acoustic forces that not only provides novel insights into the forces exerted by specified sound waves, but also addresses the inverse problem of designing sound waves to implement desired force landscapes. These force landscapes could be used to transport and organize matter on scales from microns to millimeters. We illustrate the benefits of this acoustokinetic framework through case studies of purely nonconservative force fields, standing waves, pseudo-standing waves, and tractor beams.