Propulsion of an artificial nanoswimmer: a comprehensive review

Abstract

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.

Device and programming abstractions for spatiotemporal control of active micro-particle swarms

“…For other swarm systems, the stimuli set will vary to achieve these commands. 1,18,22,25,35,36 However, the commands themselves are general methods for manipulating matter, and thus are broadly applicable. Finally, system-level commands require the system to be able to monitor its state (i.e.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] Controlled swarm motion may be employed to generate flows in lab-onchip devices in conjunction with digital microfluidics, [1][2][3][4][5][10][11][12] on-chip computation as previously explored with droplet logic and neural computation, 7,13 cargo delivery, 6,[14][15][16] and for selfassembly of nano-and microdevices. 8,10,15,[17][18][19][20] Algorithms for efficient control and programming of such swarms have been extensively studied via theory 20,21 and experiment in both synthetic 22 and natural systems, from motor proteins and filaments 23,24 to single-celled organisms 2,8,25,26 to insects 27 to macroscopic robots. 20,21,28 For microbiological swarms, "interactive biology" setups have enabled both professionals and non-experts to interact and experiment with swarm agents in real-time for research and edutainment purposes, e.g., through biology cloud experimentation laboratories, 29,…”

Energy requirements of error correction codes in diffusion-based molecular communication systems

“…Thus, the critical case, ∆E = 0 is thus important for determining whether the ECC is suitable for molecular communication system. In this case, (35) can be reduced to:…”

“…However, there may be other applications where the complexity of the two robots is not similar. For example, in drug delivery systems, a set of nano-robots as the beacons located around the body can transmit information to guide macroor micro-scale drug delivery robots working around human blood vessels [34], [35]. In this case, the T X s are considered much simpler than the R X s, so when calculating the energy, only the encoding processing needs to be taken into account.…”

Computational design of microscopic swimmers and capsules: From directed motion to collective behavior

“…Over the last several decades, researchers have been exploring various approaches to create microscopic synthetic systems that can mimic specific aspects of the complex behaviors that are attributed to unicellular microorganism [8][9][10][11]. Analogous motile and intelligent microrobots have enormous potential for applications in biomedical assays, tissue engineering studies, nano-manufacturing and other fields in which direct access and complex manipulations with micrometer and nanometer sized objects are required [12][13][14][15]. Furthermore, understanding the behavior of such synthetic "microbes" provides researchers with important insights into the underlying physics that enable microorganisms to move and perform other physiological functions in their native environments [16].…”