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Electronically integrated, mass-manufactured, microscopic robots

Cornell Affiliated Author(s)

Author

M.Z. Miskin
A.J. Cortese
K. Dorsey
E.P. Esposito
M.F. Reynolds
Q. Liu
M. Cao
D.A. Muller
P.L. McEuen
Itai Cohen

Abstract

Fifty years of Moore’s law scaling in microelectronics have brought remarkable opportunities for the rapidly evolving field of microscopic robotics1–5. Electronic, magnetic and optical systems now offer an unprecedented combination of complexity, small size and low cost6,7, and could be readily appropriated for robots that are smaller than the resolution limit of human vision (less than a hundred micrometres)8–11. However, a major roadblock exists: there is no micrometre-scale actuator system that seamlessly integrates with semiconductor processing and responds to standard electronic control signals. Here we overcome this barrier by developing a new class of voltage-controllable electrochemical actuators that operate at low voltages (200 microvolts), low power (10 nanowatts) and are completely compatible with silicon processing. To demonstrate their potential, we develop lithographic fabrication-and-release protocols to prototype sub-hundred-micrometre walking robots. Every step in this process is performed in parallel, allowing us to produce over one million robots per four-inch wafer. These results are an important advance towards mass-manufactured, silicon-based, functional robots that are too small to be resolved by the naked eye. © 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.

Date Published

Journal

Nature

Volume

584

Issue

7822

Number of Pages

557-561,

URL

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85089913804&doi=10.1038%2fs41586-020-2626-9&partnerID=40&md5=614b52f67378935da3a21c6eaedb353c

DOI

10.1038/s41586-020-2626-9

Group (Lab)

Itai Cohen Group

Funding Source

FA2386-13-1-4118
NNCI-1542081
DMR-1435829
ARO W911NF-18-1-0032
DMR-1719875

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