▲ 作者:CONRAD L. SMART, TANNER G. PEARSON, ZEXI LIANG, MELODY X. LIM, MOHAMED I. ABDELRAHMAN, FRANCESCO MONTICONE, ITAI COHEN, AND PAUL L. MCEUEN
▲ 链接:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adr2177
▲ 摘要:
具有与光的波长相当特征的微型机器人为探索微观世界和在微观尺度上控制光提供了新的途径。研究者介绍了一类在可见光衍射极限下工作的新型磁控微型机器人,并将其称之为衍射机器人。
他们将纳米厚的机械膜、可编程纳米磁体和衍射光学元件结合在一起,创造出了不受束缚的微型机器人,小到足以衍射可见光,又足够灵活,可以在毫拉级磁场中进行复杂的重新配置。研究者还展示了它们的应用,包括使用一种结构照明显微镜的变体进行亚衍射成像,用于光束转向和聚焦的可调谐衍射光学元件,以及具有皮牛顿灵敏度的力传感。
▲ Abstract:
Microscopic robots with features comparable with the wavelength of light offer new ways of probing the microscopic world and controlling light at the microscale. We introduce a new class of magnetically controlled microscopic robots (microbots) that operate at the visible-light diffraction limit, which we term diffractive robots. We combined nanometer-thick mechanical membranes, programmable nanomagnets, and diffractive optical elements to create untethered microbots small enough to diffract visible light and flexible enough to undergo complex reconfigurations in millitesla-scale magnetic fields. We demonstrated their applications, including subdiffractive imaging by using a variant of structured illumination microscopy, tunable diffractive optical elements for beam steering and focusing, and force sensing with piconewton sensitivity.