Effect of Endeffector's Contact Area on Single Cell Manipulation at Small Scale

Abstract

At small scale, the surface force becomes dominated, which causes difficult to the small object's manipulation. In this paper, we study the effect of the endeffector's contact area on the biological cell's manipulation. First, two endeffectors with different size are fabricated based on focused ion beam (FIB) etching. Then, they are used to detach the single cell from substrate. The maximum detaching force of each is calculated and the effect of the endeffector's size on cell manipulation is discussed. After that, different types of end effector are designed for different cell manipulation purpose. The result shows that the contact area at small scale has great affects on cell's manipulation. By changing the contact area, we are able to perform different manipulation tasks, which will benefit the research on accurate positioning as well as the biological analysis at small scale.