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Updated: Jun 17, 2026

Hand Controlled Manipulation of Single Molecules via a Scanning Probe Microscope with a 3D Virtual Reality Interface
Published on: October 2, 2016
Shape-controlled movement of Zn/SU-8 micromotors
Tijana Maric1,2, Lasse Højlund Eklund Thamdrup1,2, Anja Boisen1,2
1The Danish National Research Foundation and Villum Foundation's Center for Intelligent Drug Delivery and Sensing Using Microcontainers and Nanomechanics (IDUN), Department of Health Technology, Technical University of Denmark Ørsted Plads, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby Denmark tijma@dtu.dk.
Abstract:
Creating micromotors (MMs) that will have the highest possible velocities has become one of the main focuses in the field of autonomous microdevices research. The importance of velocity stems from various autonomous microdevices applications, ranging from faster drug delivery to the eradication of various bacterial biofilms using only mechanical movement. To investigate how different shapes affect the velocity of Zn/SU-8 micromotors in acid solution, we fabricated micromotors with various geometries (Zn/SU-8/Cylindrical, Zn/SU-8/Rectangular cuboid, Zn/SU-8/Triangular prism, Zn/SU-8/Pentagonal prism and Zn/SU-8/Pentagrammic prism MMs). This is the first comparative study where shape has been isolated as the critical factor influencing micromotor velocity under the same catalytic surface conditions. Our results demonstrate that Zn/SU-8/Rectangular cuboid and Zn/SU-8/Triangular prism MMs exhibit significantly higher average velocities compared to the other studied MMs. The shape-optimized Zn/SU-8 micromotors, characterized by their simple synthesis process and low cost, offer significant potential to enhance efficiency and navigation in both environmental and medical applications through precise movement control.
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