3D-printed machines that manipulate microscopic objects using capillary forces
Published in Nature, 2022
Recommended citation: Zeng, C., Faaborg, M. W., Sherif, A., Falk, M. J., Hajian, R., Xiao, M., Hartig, K., Bar-Sinai, Y., Brenner, M. P., & Manoharan, V. N. (2022). 3D-printed machines that manipulate microscopic objects using capillary forces. Nature, 611(7934), Article 7934. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05234-7
Industrial techniques for braiding and weaving fibers struggle to handle micrometer-scale filaments without snapping them. We introduce a novel approach to manipulating filaments on this scale, using centimeter-scale 3D printed devices that take advantage of a repulsive capillary force to gently trap and steer floats and filaments to produce braids of varying complexity.