A review on acoustic vortices: Generation, characterization, applications and perspectives

Acoustic vortices provide a single-beam approach to manipulate objects with sizes from nanometers to millimeters, gaining increasing interest in recent years. The helical beam renders them good ability to trap particles in three dimensions stably. At the same time, the orbital angular momentum of acoustic vortices can be used to realize object rotation and data transmission. In this review, we summarize the generation and characterization of acoustic vortices. Furthermore, we present the application of acoustic vortices in particle manipulation, object rotation, acoustic communication, and especially in the biomedical field. Finally, perspectives on the future directions for acoustic vortex research are discussed.