Fabrication and wireless micromanipulation of magnetic-biocompatible microrobots using microencapsulation for microrobotics and microfluidics applications

Abstract

It is important to fabricate biocompatible and chemical-resistant microstructures that can be powered and controlled without a tether in fluid environment for applications when contamination must be avoided, like cell manipulation, and applications where connecting the power source to the actuator would be cumbersome, like targeted delivery of chemicals. In this work, a novel fabrication method was described to encapsulate magnetic composite into pure SU-8 structures, enabling the truly microscale ferromagnetic microrobots biocompatible and chemical resistant. The microrobots were developed using the simple multilayer photolithography that allows us to mass produce and were actuated contact-free by external magnetic field to complete micromanipulations of micro-objects. The microrobots were actuated moving along a preplanned path to transport a glass microsphere object at an approximately average speed of 1.1 mm/sec and can be operated to rotate, aim at targets and collect objects.

Keywords:

• Microencapsulation
• magnetic microrobots
• wireless micromanipulation

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Funding

This research was partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC: U1505251), Key deployment project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KFZD-SW-202) and Guangdong province science and technology plan projects (Grant No. 2014B010111008).