Magnetic Janus origami robot for cross-scale droplet omni-manipulation

Versatile manipulation of cross-scale droplets is essential in many fields. Magnetic excitation is widely used for droplet manipulation due to its distinguishing merits. However, facile magnetic actuation strategies are still lacked to realize versatile multiscale droplet manipulation. Here, a type of magnetically actuated Janus origami robot is readily fabricated for versatile cross-scale droplet manipulation including three-dimensional transport, merging, splitting, dispensing and release of daughter droplets, stirring and remote heating. The robot allows untethered droplet manipulation from ~3.2 nL to ~51.14 µL. It enables splitting of droplet, precise dispensing (minimum of ~3.2 nL) and release (minimum of ~30.2 nL) of daughter droplets. The combination of magnetically controlled rotation and photothermal properties further endows the robot with the ability to stir and heat droplets remotely. Finally, the application of the robot in polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is explored. The extraction and purification of nucleic acids can be successfully achieved.

Shaojun Jiang, Bo Li, Jun Zhao, Dong Wu, Yiyuan Zhang, Zhipeng Zhao, Hao Yu, Kexiang Shao, Cong Zhang, Rui Li, Chao Chen, Zuojun Shen, Jie Hu, Bin Dong, Ling Zhu, Jiawen Li, Liqiu Wang, Jiaru Chu, Yanlei Hu