Figure 2.

(a) Schematic image of biomimetic non-magnetic swimmers. The length of the head and tail of the designed polymer swimmer is ≈400 μm and ≈1500 μm, respectively. The self-propulsion speed reaches ≈10 μm/s. (b) The concept of manufacturing magnetic nanorods with a flexible polymer hinge. The image shows the flexible part of the polyelectrolyte shell connecting two Ni/Au/Pt segments. (c) Schematic and SEM image of 3-link swimmers [76]. Copyright 2012, American Chemical Society. The graph shows the dependence of the average propulsion speed on the frequency for 3-link swimmers. (d) Three-dimensional laser lithography and deposition of a Ni layer for magnetic actuation. The microswimmer made in IP-L 780 polymer using 3D laser lithography and the deposition of a Ni layer for magnetic actuation [77]. The total length of the microswimmer is 120 μm and the length of its magnetic head is ~40 μm.