First microscopic robots are able to walk thanks to laser tech

A university collaboration has generated the first microscopic robots that incorporate semiconductor components. The users can control and make these special robots walk by using laser technology.

The first microscopic walking robot by applying standard electronic signals (Photo: The Week)

The first microscopic robots including semiconductor components have been made through a Cornell University collaboration which allows them to be controlled and made to walk with some standard electronic signals.

These robots provide a sample for building even more complicated versions that utilize silicon-based intelligence. Besides, they can be mass produced, and it is promised in the near future that they can travel through human tissue and blood.

The new robots are estimated to be about 5 microns thick (a micron is one-millionth of a meter), 40 microns wide and from 40 to 70 microns in length. There is a simple circuit made from silicon photovoltaics in each bot which essentially functions as the torso and brain. More than that, the four electrochemical actuators are set into them so as to function as legs.

The researchers control the robots by flashing laser pulses at different photovoltaics, each of which charges up a separate set of legs. By toggling the laser back and forth between the front and back photovoltaics, the robot walks.

The robots are certainly high-tech, but they operate with low voltage (200 millivolts) and low power (10 nanowatts), and remain strong and robust for their size. Because they are made with standard lithographic processes, they can be fabricated in parallel: About 1 million bots fit on a 4-inch silicon wafer.

The researchers are discovering more ways to soup up the robots with more complex electronics and onboard computation. These improvements could one day result in swarms of microscopic robots crawling through and restructuring materials, or suturing blood vessels, or being assigned en masse to probe large swaths of the human brain.

Source: Science Daily

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