Artificial Bacteria Flagella With Microstructured Soft-Magnetic Teeth

Integrating functional subunits into a microrobot offers a promising pathway to enhance its operational capabilities. The functional integration of microrobots lies in organizing subunit distribution into a 3-D morphology while balancing the geometry formation affected by subunits and locomotion performance. Here, in this article, discrete microstructured soft-magnetic teeth (MTs) are circularly embedded into an artificial bacterial flagellum (ABF) to function as equivalent subunits, representing a good start to demonstrate the integration of subelements in microrobots through local stress regulation. Based on various substructure patterns, the controllable geometry modulation of ABF-MTs has unveiled the tunable angle-dependent deformation behavior, offering numerous possibilities for geometric morphology and propulsion extension. The outstanding kinematic performance demonstrates the seamless fusion of functionality and propulsion by maintaining locomotion speed, trajectory planning, pursuit, and step-motion-like behavior. Such a physical-forming strategy offers an avenue for incorporating subdevices in microrobot functionalization.