Micro and Nano Robotics

Micro and nano robotics at the physics scale concerns the motion of tiny objects—from living bacteria to synthetic catalytic particles a few hundred nanometers across—through fluid environments where viscosity dominates and inertia is nearly irrelevant. Understanding how such objects generate and sustain self-propulsion requires linking the chemistry or biology driving motion to the surrounding hydrodynamics, a problem that connects condensed matter physics with fluid mechanics and biology. Engineered nanomotors that harvest chemical energy from their surroundings have opened concrete possibilities in targeted drug delivery and minimally invasive medicine, though translating lab demonstrations into physiologically realistic conditions remains a central challenge. Active questions include how collections of self-propelled particles coordinate into emergent collective behaviors, and how confinement, boundaries, and complex biological fluids alter the fundamental physics of individual and group locomotion.

Works

51,398

Total citations

885,805

Keywords

HydrodynamicsMicro/NanomotorsSelf-PropulsionColloidal ParticlesSwimming MicroorganismsBacterial Motion