Obara K, Kageyama Y, Takeda S. Self-Propulsion of a Light-Powered Microscopic Crystalline Flapper in Water.
SMALL (WEINHEIM AN DER BERGSTRASSE, GERMANY) 2022;
18:e2105302. [PMID:
34837473 DOI:
10.1002/smll.202105302]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/01/2021] [Revised: 10/18/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
A key goal in developing molecular microrobots that mimic real-world animal dynamic behavior is to understand better the self-continuous progressive motion resulting from collective molecular transformation. This study reports, for the first time, the experimental realization of directional swimming of a microcrystal that exhibits self-continuous reciprocating motion in a 2D water tank. Although the reciprocal flip motion of the crystals is like that of a fish wagging its tail fin, many of the crystals swam in the opposite direction to which a fish would swim. Here the directionality generation mechanism and physical features of the swimming behavior is explored by constructing a mathematical model for the crystalline flapper. The results show that a tiny crystal with a less-deformable part in its flip fin exhibits a pull-type stroke swimming, while a crystal with a fin that uniformly deforms exhibits push-type kicking motion.
Collapse