One limitation of our first fluid-immersed nanorods was that they moved in random directions and were continuously undergoing random turns because of Brownian motion. In realistic applications, of course, nanomachines will need some mechanism to steer them toward their destination.
Our first attempt to solve the steering problem relied on a magnetic field. We embedded nickel disks in the rods. These disks react to magnetic fields like tiny compasses with their north-pole to south-pole axes perpendicular to the length of the cylinders.
A refrigerator magnet held a few millimeters away exerts enough torque on a cylinder to overcome Brownian motion’s tendency to turn the cylinder around at random. The only remaining force is along the length of the rod, supplied by the catalytic reaction. Our nanorods then move in straight lines and can be steered by turning the magnet. This motion is analogous to the behavior of bacteria that align themselves with the earth’s weak magnetic field. Similar motors can navigate in a micronscale magnetic labyrinth, following the field lines through twists and turns.
Last year Crespi and one of us (Sen) showed that the magnetically steered motors are able to pull “cargo” containers—plastic spheres about 10 times their size—through fluids. Many interesting applications can be envisioned for such cargo-bearing motors. For example, they could deliver drugs to particular cells in the body or shuttle molecules along a nanoscale assembly line, where the cargo could chemically bind to other molecules.
Steering nanorobots externally could be useful in some applications; for others, it will be essential that nanorobots be able to move autonomously. Velegol and Sen were excited to discover recently that our catalytic nanorods can follow chemical “bread crumb trails” the way bacteria do. Typically a bacterium moves by a series of straight runs interrupted by random turns. But when a straight run happens to swim up a chemical gradient (for example, the scent of food becoming more intense closer to the food itself), the bacterium extends the length of the straight run. Because favorable runs last longer than those in unfavorable directions, the net effect is that the bacterium eventually converges on its target, even though it has no direct way to steer itself—a strategy called chemotaxis. Our nanomotors move faster at higher concentrations of fuel, and this tendency effectively lengthens their straight runs. Consequently, they move on average toward a source of fuel, such as a gel particle soaked with hydrogen peroxide.
More recently, the two of us have also demonstrated motor particles that are driven by light, or phototaxis. These particles use light to break up molecules and create positive and negative ions. The two types of ions diffuse away at different speeds, setting up an electric field that causes the particles to move. Depending on the nature of the ions released and the charge on the particle, the particles are driven toward or away from the region of highest light intensity. An interesting twist on this technique is a light-driven system in which some particles act as “predators” and others as “prey.” In this case, one kind of particle gives off ions that cause the second kind to be driven toward it. The correlated motion of these particles bears a striking resemblance to white blood cells chasing down a bacterium.
Chemotaxis and phototaxis are still at the proof-of-principle stage, but they could lead to the design of “smart,” autonomous nanorobots, which could move independently toward their target, perhaps by harvesting energy from glucose or other fuels abundant inside organisms or in the environment. Our work can also be a starting point for the design of new robots that could communicate chemically with one another and perform collective functions, such as moving in swarms and forming patterns.
Source of Information : Scientific American(2009-05)
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