Memoristic Ambient Oxygen Nanosensors for Medical Microrobotic Agents

Description

As robotic technology progresses towards smaller and smaller micro-/nanometer scale intelligent systems, one barrier yet to be adequately addressed is the integration of functionalized nanoscale elements onto micrometer-sized robotic agents. Current micro- /nanofabrication techniques produce chips that are millimeters to centimeters in overall sizes, orders of magnitude too large. The objective of this project is to investigate the integration of nanowire and 2D-material memristic sensors into 3D helical microstructures, which serve as robotic agents swimming in liquid at low Reynold’s number for medical applications. Controlled fabrication and characterization of rolled-up helical nanostructures from pre-stressed semiconducting bilayers have demonstrated new approaches for creating microrobots. Based on their rolled-up nature, these 3D structures also provide a completely new way for packaging other nanodevices into their hollow structures for physical functionalizations. In this project, new principles and processes will be investigated and developed for creating microrobotic agents using these rolled-up helical nanostructures integrated with memristers as passive sensors for ambient oxygen level sensing. The thickness of the nanobelt is between several nanometers to several tens of nanometers; 4 to 5 orders of magnitude thinner than conventional Si wafers. After rolling up, the length of the whole system will be several tens of micrometers while the diameter is in the order of a few micrometers. The main processes to be investigated includes the fabrication of nanoelectrodes on nanobelts, the assembly of nanowires onto the nanoelectrodes, and the under-etching of the nanobelts away from the substrate. Our effort will focus on the improvement of nanorobitic assembly and integration, the controllability and automation of electro-forming of the memristers, the characterization of them in the air, vacuum, and liquid, and the applications in microrobotic medical diagnosis. The proposed research will enable new technologies for the prototyping, design, modeling, simulation, fabrication, and assembly of nano-sized functional elements for microrobotic agents. Strain engineering and nanorobotic assembly will serve as fundament processes for the fabrication and integration of nanoscale engineering systems. Memristers will be used as sensing elements based on a new mechanism for recording the historical information in the areas that the microrobot has reached, which is conceptually new for the design of a passive sensors and avoids the necessity of a power supply to the micro-agents, which is typically difficult. The success of this project will pave a new avenue of micro-/nanorobots for such applications as oxygen level detection and cancer cell identification for medicine.