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Microscopic Robots

We report on a new class of fast, high-curvature, low-voltage, reconfigurable, micrometer-scale shape-memory actuators. They bend to the smallest radius of curvature of any electrically controlled microactuator (~500 nanometers), are fast (<100-millisecond operation), and operate inside the electrochemical window of water. These shape-memory actuators can be used to create basic electrically reconfigurable microscale robot elements including actuating surfaces, origami-based three-dimensional shapes, morphing metamaterials, and mechanical memory elements.
Individually addressable microscale robotic cilia have the potential to enable unprecedented control over microfluidic environments. They could be used to sort microscale particles, control chemical reactions, or transport viscoelastic materials. Artificial cilia could also be used to better our understanding of biological processes such as neurotransmitter transport in the brain and fluid clearing in the liver and lungs. Here, we report on the development of electrically actuated artificial cilia that pump fluid efficiently at the micron scale.
Fifty years of Moore’s Law scaling in microelectronics have brought remarkable opportunities for the rapidly-evolving field of microrobotics. Electronic, magnetic, and optical systems now offer an unprecedented combination of complexity, small size, and low cost, and could readily be appropriated to form the intelligent core of robots the size of cells. But one major roadblock exists: there is no micron-scale actuator system that seamlessly integrates with semiconductor processing and responds to standard electronic control signals.
We envision the next generation of nanotechnology as machines that are active at time and length scales comparable to biological microorganisms. These machines will be able to change shape in fractions of a second in response to environmental cues, carry electronics, be fabricated en mass using standard semiconductor processing techniques, and cost less than a cent per machine. The key breakthrough behind this future? Autonomous origami machines made with atomically thin paper.