Microrobots are very promising for a variety of applications such as medical diagnostics, drug delivery and medical treatment. Many types of microrobots based on different propulsion mechanisms have been reported such as microswimmer, biological microrobots and chemical propellers. Magnetic microrobots are more suitable for biological application and among the magnetic microrobots, we can find helical microrobots, flexible nanorods, permanent magnetic sphere, self-assembled micro-bead chains based on Janus particles, single permanent magnet and nickel or iron-filled carbon nanotubes. However, the microrobots’ size minimization is limited by the complexity of the fabrication process.
We reported the simplest microrobot based on two superparamagnetic micro-particles. These microrobots were controlled using rotating magnetic field generated by three pairs of electromagnetic coils. Thereafter, we studied their velocity as function of size, as shown in Fig. 1. For controlling the speed and the direction, we made vision based LabVIEW program, which allow us to control microrobots automatically or manually (Fig. 2). We used 2.8 um diameter superparamagnetic Dynabeads ®-M270 Carboxylic Acid (inset in Fig. 3). Self-assembly of the superparamagnetic micro-particles allows making microrobots of different sizes (Fig. 3). This work can have potential for drug delivery applications at the microscale, where the speed and high precision directional controls are necessary.
Finally, we used Autodesk Fusion 360 for designing the novel fluorescent microscope. The microscope is equipped with three direction electromagnetic coils. We made soft nanorobots using a new method. First, a sacrifice layer of poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) was deposited, followed by the deposition poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA). Next, we activated the nanosheet surface using avidin solution. Figure 4 represents optical images taken using our new portable fluorescent microscope. As seen, fluorescent biotin magnetic nanoparticles assembled on the nanosheet surface can be detected. In addition, the magnetic nanoparticles attached to the transparent and flexible polymer nanosheet allow the wirelessly control of the nanosheet using 3D rotating magnetic field.