Magnetically Propelled Fish-Like Nanoswimmers.
The swimming locomotion of fish involves a complex interplay between a deformable body and induced flow in the surrounding fluid. While innovative robotic devices, inspired by physicomechanical designs evolved in fish, have been created for underwater propulsion of large swimmers, scaling such powerful locomotion into micro-/nanoscale propulsion remains challenging. Here, a magnetically propelled fish-like artificial nanoswimmer is demonstrated that emulates the body and caudal fin propulsion swimming mechanism displayed by fish. To mimic the deformable fish body for periodic shape changes, template-electrosynthesized multisegment nanowire swimmers are used to construct the artificial nanofishes (diameter 200 nm; length 4.8 μm). The resulting nanofish consists a gold segment as the head, two nickel segments as the body, and one gold segment as the caudal fin, with three flexible porous silver hinges linking each segment. Under an oscillating magnetic field, the propulsive nickel elements bend the body and caudal fin periodically to generate travelling-wave motions with speeds exceeding 30 μm s-1. The propulsion dynamics is studied theoretically using the immersed boundary method. Such body-deformable nanofishes exhibit a high swimming efficiency and can serve as promising biomimetic nanorobotic devices for nanoscale biomedical applications.
State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150001, China.|Department of Nanoengineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
Tianlong
T
Li
Department of Nanoengineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
Jinxing
J
Li
State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150001, China.
Hongtao
H
Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150001, China.
Xiaocong
X
Chang
State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150001, China.
Wenping
W
Song
State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150001, China.
Yanan
Y
Hu
State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150001, China.
Guangbin
G
Shao
Department of Nanoengineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
Elodie
E
Sandraz
State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150001, China.
Guangyu
G
Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, Heilongjiang, 150001, China.
Longqiu
L
Li
Department of Nanoengineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, 92093, USA.
Joseph
J
Wang
D000818:Animals; D032701:Biomimetics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005399:Fishes / Q000502:physiology*; D008124:Locomotion; D060328:Magnetic Phenomena; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry*; D036103:Nanotechnology; D013550:Swimming / Q000502:physiology*
body and caudal fin; fish-like; magnetic propulsion; nanorobots; nanoswimmers