Abstract
Mobile microrobots have a promising future in various applications. These include targeted drug delivery, local measurement, biopsy or microassembly. Studying mobile microrobots inside microfluidics is an essential step towards such applications. But in this environment that was not designed for the robot, integration process and propulsion robustness still pose technological challenges. In this paper, we present a helical microrobot with three different motions, designed to achieve these goals. These motions are rolling, spintop motion and swimming. Through these multiple motions, microrobots are able to selectively integrate a chip through a microfluidic channel. This enables them to perform propulsion characterizations, 3D (Three Dimensional) maneuverability, particle cargo transport manipulation and exit from the chip. The microrobot selective integration inside microfluidics could lead to various in-vitro biologic or in-vivo biomedical applications.
Highlights
Mobile microrobots have a promising future in various applications
Some milli-10–12, micro-13 and nanometric[14] robots use this technique to efficiently propel with a rotation produced by the torque from a homogeneous magnetic field
This work was motivated by the hypothesis that providing multiple motions to a microrobot could significantly improve its robustness and mobility which are essential for its microfluidic applications
Summary
Microfluidic chip integration of a microrobot is an important step. It proves the robustness of the RTS and brings helical robots closer to application and characterization by making them available on a widely used biological platform. We place in the open chamber of the chip a substrate with a field of RTSs on top of a thin PDMS layer. In the second step the RTS takes off the fabrication substrate and swims It dives down around 1.5 mm to reach the bottom glass surface of the microfluidic chip. This distance corresponds to the thickness of the fabrication substrate of the RTSs and a thin PDMS layer. It is below 2 μm as it is shown on the supplementary Fig. 3 To perform this integration process, the multimodal motions and the control ability of the RTS are essential. Both 3D maneuverability with swimming and surface motions are required
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