Local environmental control by world-to-chip interface microchip and pipette

Bio-actuated, especially flagellated bacteria-driven, microrobots have been actively studied to develop novel technologies such as microsurgery inside human body, though the characteristics of the bacterial flagellar motor have not been sufficiently investigated. For analysis of the flagellar motor, we previously proposed the local environmental control system with nano/micro dual pipettes to change local ion/reagent concentration arbitrarily. However, in this system, over time, the local ion/reagent could not be fully flushed out due to the increase of the diffusion rate caused by high ion/reagent concentration in the bath. So, in this paper, to achieve more arbitrary local environmental control, we propose the local environmental control by world-to-chip interface microchip (WtCI) and pipette. We develop the system and demonstrate the feasibility of the local environmental control by WtCI microchip and pipette.