Abstract:Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots of the size of few hundred nanometres and below consisting of components of nanoscale or molecular size. There is an all around development in nanotechnology towards realization of nanorobots in the last two decades. In the present work, the compilation of advancement in nanotechnology in context to nanorobots is done. The challenges and issues in movement of a nanorobot and innovations present in nature to overcome the difficulties in moving at nano-size regimes are discussed. The efficiency aspect in context to artificial nanorobot is also presented.
In published literature, it is widely reported that the plasma treatment and funtionalization with Octadecyltrichlorosilane (OTS) self-assembled monolayer (SAM) can individually alter the wetting properties of SU8 surface. A combination of the two approaches gives better results and the synergism of the two approaches produces a superhydrophobic SU8 surface, which is presented in this work. We have investigated various composition of plasma for treatment of SU8 surfaces and permuted the treated SU8 surfaces with deposition of OTS SAM. In all such synergized experiments, we obtained water contact angle higher than 150 , which is much higher than the one that can be obtained with individual application of the two approaches. The combined approach presented in this work is suitable for bulk production of superhydrophobic surface, and is a mask-less process, which makes it cost effective. The surface topography, wetting, and chemical properties of SU8 surfaces were characterized using the contact angle goniometry, atomic force microscopy, FTIR, Raman, and XPS spectra. The superhydrophobic SU8 surfaces were observed to be stable even after five months.
EXPERIMENTAL
Substrate PreparationSingle side polished p-type silicon wafers (100) were used as substrate. SU8 (Microchem, SU8-2002) negative photo resist were used for experiments. The silicon wafers were cleaned in H 2 SO 4 (98%) and H 2 O 2 (30%) mixture of 3:1 ratio for 15 min to remove organic contaminations. The samples were rinsed thoroughly with DI water followed by drying with nitrogen gas. After cleaning, the SU8 photoresist was spin coated at 500 rpm Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article.
Locomotion at micro and nano scales is a challenge and has drawn attention for over six decades. Inspired by nature, studies have mimicked nanoswimming organisms, which use rotating or beating flagella for locomotion. This mode of propulsion, also known as flagellar propulsion, has been explored extensively in the literature. However, chemical and magnetic methods have gained interest in the last decade owing to advantages including high thrust force and wireless control. The review summarizes chronologically the various propulsion mechanisms for moving a nanoswimmer using chemical fuel, magnetic fields, ultrasonic pulses and thrust force generated by bacteria in the presence of external stimuli including laser light, and thermal and chemical gradients.
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