Design of an Electrothermally Actuated SU-8 based Microgripper for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

For a past few decades, micro manipulation has become a significant task in the fields of microelectromechanical systems, cell biology and cell mechanics. To study cell mechanics and cell biology, sample are required. Previously, micropipetes were used to take biological samples in bulk. Optical tweezers were also used for isolating particles and objects with dimensions in microns. Now a day, these samples are taken with the help of a microgripper. In this work, a biocompatible microgripper design is presented for cell manipulation of multiple size. Microgripper is a MEMS device, commonly named as microtweezer, micrograsper and micromanipulator. It is a device that can grip, hold, relocate, rotate, pick and place objects with dimensions in microns. Objects include from components of microrobots to a living cell of various shape and size. This wide range in size of living and non-living objects under observation, leads to the development of variety of microgrippers available today. This works targets the cell manipulation with wide gripping range at low power and compact in size.