Nanopropellers and their actuation in complex viscoelastic media

Debora Schamel, Andrew G. Mark, John G. Gibbs, Cornelia Miksch, Konstantin I. Morozov, Alexander M. Leshansky, Peer Fischer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

266 Scopus citations

Abstract

Tissue and biological fluids are complex viscoelastic media with a nanoporous macromolecular structure. Here, we demonstrate that helical nanopropellers can be controllably steered through such a biological gel. The screw-propellers have a filament diameter of about 70 nm and are smaller than previously reported nanopropellers as well as any swimming microorganism. We show that the nanoscrews will move through high-viscosity solutions with comparable velocities to that of larger micropropellers, even though they are so small that Brownian forces suppress their actuation in pure water. When actuated in viscoelastic hyaluronan gels, the nanopropellers appear to have a significant advantage, as they are of the same size range as the gel's mesh size. Whereas larger helices will show very low or negligible propulsion in hyaluronan solutions, the nanoscrews actually display significantly enhanced propulsion velocities that exceed the highest measured speeds in Newtonian fluids. The nanopropellers are not only promising for applications in the extracellular environment but small enough to be taken up by cells.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)8794-8801
Number of pages8
JournalACS Nano
Volume8
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 23 2014
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Brownian motion
  • glancing angle deposition
  • magnetic actuation
  • micropropulsion
  • polymeric networks
  • vapor deposition
  • viscoelastic fluids

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Materials Science
  • General Engineering
  • General Physics and Astronomy

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