Emergent microrobotic oscillators via asymmetry-induced order

This paper presents a study on low-frequency oscillators emerging from a collective of active microparticles at the air-liquid interface of a hydrogen peroxide drop. These oscillations, driven by the conversion of ambient chemical energy into periodic mechanical motion and electrical currents, are surprisingly robust at larger ensemble sizes only when a particle with modified reactivity is introduced to break permutation symmetry. The authors explain this emergent order through a thermodynamic mechanism of asymmetry-induced order. The harvested power enables the use of electronic components, as demonstrated by cyclically driving a microrobotic arm. This research proposes a novel strategy for achieving low-frequency oscillations at the microscale, advancing microrobotic autonomy.

Jing Fan Yang, Thomas A. Berrueta, Allan M. Brooks, Albert Tianxiang Liu, Ge Zhang, David Gonzalez-Medrano, Sungyun Yang, Volodymyr B. Koman, Pavel Chvykov, Lexy N. LeMar, Marc Z. Miskin, Todd D. Murphey, Michael S. Strano