Controlled Magnetic Propulsion of Floating Polymeric Two-Dimensional Nano-Objects

Soft-bodied magnetically actuated microrobots could be developed by including controlled dispersions of magnetic nanoparticles into polymeric micro-fabricated structures. The characterization and actuation of magnetically active soft-bodied microrobots by tailored magnetic fields is, thus, a key issue for the design, full control and further development of these mobile micro-systems. In this work, the authors demonstrate the predictable and controllable transportation of polymeric flexible nanofilms embedding super-paramagnetic nanoparticles, by developing and quantitatively validating a model of the magnetic force acting on such structures, thus paving the way towards the wireless magnetic actuation of soft-bodied microrobots. The magnetic forces generated in our experimental conditions range from about 10−9 to 10−6 N, with typical velocities for the nanofilms ranging between about 0.1 and 2.3 mm/s. For the entire range, a good agreement between theoretical model predictions and measured data is obtained (average normalized error δ = 3.65%). The proposed approach for microrobotic development targets challenging environments, where keywords are liquid or wet micro-structured environments, like in biomedical applications. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden and The Robotics Society of Japan, 2011