Ultrasound-activated ciliary bands for microrobotic systems inspired by starfish

Cilia are short, hair-like appendages ubiquitous in various biological systems, which have evolved to manipulate and gather food in liquids at regimes where viscosity dominates inertia. Inspired by these natural systems, synthetic cilia have been developed and utilized in microfluidics and microrobo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature communications 2021-11, Vol.12 (1), p.6455-6455, Article 6455
Main Authors: Dillinger, Cornel, Nama, Nitesh, Ahmed, Daniel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
639/166/988
639/766/25/3927
Acoustics
Animals
Appendages
Biomimetics
Cilia
Flow characteristics
Flow profiles
Fluid flow
Humanities and Social Sciences
Hydrodynamics
Larvae
Liquid flow
Microbalances
Microfluidics
Microparticles
Microrobots
multidisciplinary
Oscillations
Propulsion
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Starfish
Ultrasonic imaging
Ultrasound
Viscosity
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Summary:Cilia are short, hair-like appendages ubiquitous in various biological systems, which have evolved to manipulate and gather food in liquids at regimes where viscosity dominates inertia. Inspired by these natural systems, synthetic cilia have been developed and utilized in microfluidics and microrobotics to achieve functionalities such as propulsion, liquid pumping and mixing, and particle manipulation. Here, we demonstrate ultrasound-activated synthetic ciliary bands that mimic the natural arrangements of ciliary bands on the surface of starfish larva. Our system leverages nonlinear acoustics at microscales to drive bulk fluid motion via acoustically actuated small-amplitude oscillations of synthetic cilia. By arranging the planar ciliary bands angled towards (+) or away (−) from each other, we achieve bulk fluid motion akin to a flow source or sink. We further combine these flow characteristics with a physical principle to circumvent the scallop theorem and realize acoustic-based propulsion at microscales. Finally, inspired by the feeding mechanism of a starfish larva, we demonstrate an analogous microparticle trap by arranging + and − ciliary bands adjacent to each other. Most engineered ciliary bands generate simple hydrodynamics with unidirectional flow profiles. Here, inspired by the starfish larva, the authors show acoustically-activated microrobots with cilia that can control direction of liquid flow through oscillations, exhibiting propulsion at microscales.
ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-021-26607-y