Patent ID: 8539969

Claim:
A system comprising: an array of acoustic transducers wherein individual acoustic transducers have sizes in the range of 9 square micrometers to 250,000 square micrometers; a positioning mechanism coupled to at least one of a target surface and the array of acoustic transducers and configured to position the array of acoustic transducers within 1 millimeter of the target surface; a cleaning liquid supply arranged to provide cleaning liquid for coupling the array of acoustic transducers to the target surface; and a controller coupled to the array of acoustic transducers and configured to activate the array of acoustic transducers; where the array of acoustic transducers is configured to directly excite a particle having a diameter in the range of 1 nanometer to 500 nanometers on the target surface with acoustic waves at one or more frequencies in the range of 10 Megahertz to 10 Gigahertz from the array of acoustic transducers.