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Acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots

Untethered synthetic microrobots have significant potential to revolutionize minimally invasive medical interventions in the future. However, their relatively slow speed and low controllability near surfaces typically are some of the barriers standing in the way of their medical applications. Here,...

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Autores principales: Aghakhani, Amirreza, Yasa, Oncay, Wrede, Paul, Sitti, Metin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7035478/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32015114
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920099117
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author Aghakhani, Amirreza
Yasa, Oncay
Wrede, Paul
Sitti, Metin
author_facet Aghakhani, Amirreza
Yasa, Oncay
Wrede, Paul
Sitti, Metin
author_sort Aghakhani, Amirreza
collection PubMed
description Untethered synthetic microrobots have significant potential to revolutionize minimally invasive medical interventions in the future. However, their relatively slow speed and low controllability near surfaces typically are some of the barriers standing in the way of their medical applications. Here, we introduce acoustically powered microrobots with a fast, unidirectional surface-slipping locomotion on both flat and curved surfaces. The proposed three-dimensionally printed, bullet-shaped microrobot contains a spherical air bubble trapped inside its internal body cavity, where the bubble is resonated using acoustic waves. The net fluidic flow due to the bubble oscillation orients the microrobot's axisymmetric axis perpendicular to the wall and then propels it laterally at very high speeds (up to 90 body lengths per second with a body length of 25 µm) while inducing an attractive force toward the wall. To achieve unidirectional locomotion, a small fin is added to the microrobot’s cylindrical body surface, which biases the propulsion direction. For motion direction control, the microrobots are coated anisotropically with a soft magnetic nanofilm layer, allowing steering under a uniform magnetic field. Finally, surface locomotion capability of the microrobots is demonstrated inside a three-dimensional circular cross-sectional microchannel under acoustic actuation. Overall, the combination of acoustic powering and magnetic steering can be effectively utilized to actuate and navigate these microrobots in confined and hard-to-reach body location areas in a minimally invasive fashion.
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spelling pubmed-70354782020-02-28 Acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots Aghakhani, Amirreza Yasa, Oncay Wrede, Paul Sitti, Metin Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Physical Sciences Untethered synthetic microrobots have significant potential to revolutionize minimally invasive medical interventions in the future. However, their relatively slow speed and low controllability near surfaces typically are some of the barriers standing in the way of their medical applications. Here, we introduce acoustically powered microrobots with a fast, unidirectional surface-slipping locomotion on both flat and curved surfaces. The proposed three-dimensionally printed, bullet-shaped microrobot contains a spherical air bubble trapped inside its internal body cavity, where the bubble is resonated using acoustic waves. The net fluidic flow due to the bubble oscillation orients the microrobot's axisymmetric axis perpendicular to the wall and then propels it laterally at very high speeds (up to 90 body lengths per second with a body length of 25 µm) while inducing an attractive force toward the wall. To achieve unidirectional locomotion, a small fin is added to the microrobot’s cylindrical body surface, which biases the propulsion direction. For motion direction control, the microrobots are coated anisotropically with a soft magnetic nanofilm layer, allowing steering under a uniform magnetic field. Finally, surface locomotion capability of the microrobots is demonstrated inside a three-dimensional circular cross-sectional microchannel under acoustic actuation. Overall, the combination of acoustic powering and magnetic steering can be effectively utilized to actuate and navigate these microrobots in confined and hard-to-reach body location areas in a minimally invasive fashion. National Academy of Sciences 2020-02-18 2020-02-03 /pmc/articles/PMC7035478/ /pubmed/32015114 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920099117 Text en Copyright © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Physical Sciences
Aghakhani, Amirreza
Yasa, Oncay
Wrede, Paul
Sitti, Metin
Acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots
title Acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots
title_full Acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots
title_fullStr Acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots
title_full_unstemmed Acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots
title_short Acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots
title_sort acoustically powered surface-slipping mobile microrobots
topic Physical Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7035478/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32015114
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920099117
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