Light Sailboats: Laser driven autonomous microrobots

Abstract

We introduce a system of light driven microscopic autonomous moving particles that move on a flat surface. The design is simple, yet effective: Micrometer sized objects with wedge shape are produced by photopolymerization, they are covered with a reflective surface. When the area of motion is illuminated perpendicularly from above, the light is deflected to the side by the wedge shaped objects, in the direction determined by the position and orientation of the particles. The momentum change during reflection provides the driving force for an effectively autonomous motion. The system is an efficient tool to study self propelled microscopic robots.

References in corpus (4)

• Collective motion
• Self-motile colloidal particles: from directed propulsion to random walk
• Active Motion of Janus Particle by Self-thermophoresis in Defocused Laser Beam
• Patterns, transitions and the role of leaders in the collective dynamics of a simple robotic flock

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Self-propelled Janus particles in a ratchet: Numerical simulations
• Active Brownian motion in a narrow channel
• Diffusion of Chiral Janus Particles in a Sinusoidal Channel
• Anomalous segregation dynamics of self-propelled particles
• Microscopic Metavehicles Powered and Steered by Embedded Optical Metasurfaces
• Dimensionality constraints of light induced rotation