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Light-controlled versatile manipulation of liquid metal droplets: a gateway to future liquid robots

2021; Royal Society of Chemistry; Volume: 8; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1039/d1mh00647a

2051-6355

Hongtai Ren, Hu Jin, Jian Shu, Jie Xie, Erlong Wang, Du-An Ge, Shi‐Yang Tang, Xiangpeng Li, Weihua Li, Shiwu Zhang,

Soft Robotics and Applications

The controlled actuation of liquid metal (LM) droplets has recently shown great potential in developing smart actuating systems for applications in robotics. However, there is a lack of a simple approach for the precise manipulation of multiple LM droplets in a 2D plane, which hinders the development of complex control over droplets for realizing useful robotic applications. To overcome this challenge, here, a versatile and powerful light-induced manipulation of LM droplets is presented. The key principle is to selectively activate phototransistors in an electrolyte using infrared laser beams to electrically control LM droplets via Marangoni forces. This approach shows the ability of inducing concurrent motion, splitting, and merging of multiple LM droplets simply using light without complex and bulky systems. Parameters affecting the manipulation of LM droplets are thoroughly investigated. Moreover, a vehicle carrier driven by wheels composed of multiple LM droplets for making a light-controlled relay is demonstrated. We believe such a light-induced control method for manipulating LM droplets has the potential for advancing the development of future field-programmable robotics and droplet-based soft collaborative robots.