More on Marc Miskin’s Microscopic Robots

An illustration of the researchers’ microscopic robot. — Too small to see with the naked eye, this illustration shows the robot’s components: a circuitboard that serves as its torso and brain, platinum strips with rigid panels that serve as jointed legs, and photovoltaic panels that cause the legs to flex when hit with a laser.

Yesterday, Marc Miskin, assistant professor in Penn Engineering’s Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, published a paper in the journal Nature detailing a new kind of robot he developed with his colleagues and former advisors at Cornell.

Along with the paper, Nature published academic commentary explaining the significance of the paper, as well as a video illustrating how the researchers leveraged the well-understood technology of the semiconductor industry to make their robots’ bodies and added their own twist to form their legs. Each of those legs is a nanoscale strip of platinum that curls up when a voltage is applied; by precisely placing rigid plates to form “joints” along the strips, they can bend as if they had knees and ankles.

These microscopic robots are already taking the world by storm. Read more coverage of Miskin and his colleague’s development at New Scientist, CNet, BBC’s Science Focus Magazine, New Atlas and Inverse.