Autonomous Chemotactic Light‐Emitting Swimmers with Trajectories of Increasing Complexity

Abstract

Miniaturized autonomous swimmers have become more and more important in many areas of research due to various fields of use, ranging from biomedical to environmental tasks. Precise and predictable control of their trajectories is a key ingredient for increasing their application potential. This can be typically achieved by using external forces such as magnetic or electric fields. An interesting alternative is to use intrinsic features of the swimmers, which allow them to exhibit chemotaxis. Such a built‐in “intelligence” enables more complex trajectories, relying on mechanisms that can be considered very basic analogs of decision‐making processes. Herein, autonomous light‐emitting chemoelectronic swimmers are presented that are able to navigate along trajectories with increasing complexity. Their decision‐making capacities are characterized by recording the light emitted along their path by a fully integrated light‐emitting diode. Chemotaxis is found to be the main driving force behind their behavior, allowing envisioning such systems for solving complex maze patterns.

Adaptive 2D and Pseudo-2D Systems: Molecular, Polymeric, and Colloidal Building Blocks for Tailored Complexity

“…The external stimulus is not limited to the magnetic field [285][286][287][288]. There are examples of swimmers controlled by light [289], chemical reactions (Figure 7D) [290], and multiple stimuli [291]. Many swimmers can operate in 2D or even originally operate on a liquid surface.…”

Endogenous and exogenous wireless multimodal light-emitting chemical devices

“…the oxidation of Mg, is used as a source of electrons to trigger the light emission of a diode. 53,54 However, the majority of the designed wireless lightemitting systems exhibit only a single color. A promising alternative to design wireless multimodal optical systems is to couple two different light sources based on different physical principles and powered by BE.…”

Cooperative Chemotaxis of Magnesium Microswimmers for Corrosion Spotting

“…Artificial chemotaxis in gradients of hydrogen peroxide, released from either a hydrogel, [13] a microfluidic device [14] or cells‐macrophages, [15] have been reported. Gradients of surfactants, [16] of enzyme substrates [17] and pH [18] have also been used to generate more or less complex chemotactic behavior [19–21] . Concerning pH gradients, they can be triggered by several natural phenomena, such as enzymatic reactions [22–25] or, most importantly, corrosion events.…”