Development and Implementation of High Power Hexapole Magnetic Tweezer System for Micromanipulations

Abstract

This paper presents the design, development and implementation of a novel, high power hexapole magnetic tweezer system for $3\mathbf{D}$ micromanipulations. Six tapering-tipped magnetic poles are deployed in a tilted Cartesian coordinate system, with an electromagnetic coil on each for actuation, connected by two $3\mathbf{D}$ printed magnetic yokes to form a double layer structure. The power source is integrated to the magnetic tweezer system through a control algorithm on the software level; image processing was used for experiment analysis. Because of the high magnetic field that the magnetic coils can generate, the working space in the system is relatively larger than other similar designs, which provides better performance on microscale robotic swimmer manipulations. Simulations and experiments performed in this paper demonstrate the agile and powerful manipulation of microswimmers with desired control input to follow complex trajectories, avoid obstacles and move against micro-flow in the samples. We prove that the developed hexapole magnetic tweezer has enough power and controllability to guide microswimmers in Newtonian and Non-Newtonian fluid environments. The system will be optimized continuously and implemented into cell penetration experiments. Finally, the application will be deployed into in vivo based environments.