Abstract
Robotic micro/nanoswimmers can potentially be used as tools for medical applications, such as drug delivery and noninvasive surgery. Recently, achiral microswimmers have gained significant attention because of their simple structures, which enables high-throughput fabrication and size scalability. Here, microparticle image velocimetry (µ-PIV) was used to study the hydrodynamics of achiral microswimmers near a boundary. The structures of these microswimmers resemble the letter L and were fabricated using photolithography and thin-film deposition. Through µ-PIV measurements, the velocity flow fields of the microswimmers rotating at different frequencies were observed. The results herein yield an understanding of the hydrodynamics of the L-shaped microswimmers, which will be useful in applications such as fluidic manipulation.
Highlights
Micro/nanoswimmers have been intensely investigated for the past decade because of their potential applications in drug delivery [1,2], biological sensing [3,4], and tissue manipulation [5,6]
These devices swim at low Reynolds numbers, where viscous forces dominate over inertia; the fluid flow becomes time reversible
Even though numerical simulations were conducted to study the hydrodynamics of achiral microswimmers in bulk fluid [27,28] and near boundaries [29], so far there have been no experimental reports on the flows produced by these swimmers
Summary
Micro/nanoswimmers have been intensely investigated for the past decade because of their potential applications in drug delivery [1,2], biological sensing [3,4], and tissue manipulation [5,6]. Apart from helical or flexible body microswimmers, studies have demonstrated that rigid achiral microswimmers can swim at low Reynolds numbers under rotating magnetic fields, such as particle-based microswimmers [18], which was the first reported achiral microswimmer, in part to re-examine the minimal geometrical requirements for designing microswimmers. Aside from the above-mentioned microswimmers that are designed for swimming in bulk fluid, magnetically actuated rolling microrobots are actively being studied because of their simplicity.
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