Scientists from Leiden University used 3D printing to produce microswimmers in the shape of the Star Trek spaceship, a boat, and other complex shapes that are too small to be seen by the naked eye. The boat, for example, measures one-third the thickness of the hair, SciTech Daily reported.
These synthetic microswimmers are widely used in model systems to study out-of-equilibrium phenomena. Most synthetic microswimmers created in the past are spherical while biological microswimmers naturally go with different shapes and sizes.
Physicists Rachel Doherty, Daniela Kraft, and colleagues photographed the image of the microswimmers using an electron microscope. They published their study in the scientific journal Soft Matter.
What Are Microswimmers?
The goal of the research is to understand biological microswimmers like bacteria, study author Samia Ouhajji said. Understanding them is vital in creating new drug delivery vehicles that can swim on their own and deliver medicine at the desired body part or organ inside the human body.
Microswimmers are small particles that can be followed through a microscope and are usually spherical, although the natural ones may come in different shapes and sizes that can move through liquid matter autonomously by interacting with their environment.
Although their name suggests that they swim, unlike most humans and animals, they do not have any limbs that they can use to propel or move them.
Artificial microswimmers are colloidal particles that are typically one to ten micrometers long that move on their own in the liquid using chemical reactions, wherein the platinum coating them reacts with the hydrogen peroxide solution which propels the micrometers through the liquid. In comparison, natural micrometers propel themselves by actuating appendages like cilia or flagella.
Ever since their discovery, scientists and non-scientists have been fascinated with the idea of microscopic vehicles that can move by themselves inside the body. It is even featured in some films like the 1966 science fiction movie entitled Fantastic Voyage which is about a group of scientists who shrank themselves and their submarine to save a colleague by removing the blood clot from his brain.
But it took decades for scientists to create artificial microswimmers using micro and nanofabrication technologies successfully. Now, there are already more than a dozen designs of microswimmers that have been created.
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Using 3D Printer to Create The World's Smallest Star Trek Spaceship And Boat
The scientists discovered that they could print any shape of microswimmer using the 3D printer like boats, ships, and other complex shapes. It helped them identify how each shape affects the motion of the swimming particles.
One of the study authors, Jonas Hoecht, decided to replicate the USSS Voyager from Star Trek because he was a fan of the hit science fiction movie, according to his colleague Ouhajji. He said that he promised Hoecht during the last week of their project that they would print any shape that he likes and chose the Star Trek spaceship.
Their study helped them understand how microswimmers could be used to clean wastewater or deliver medicine throughout the body and helps them learn more about biological swimmers like bacteria and sperm.
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