香港大学唐晋尧团队报道了相位调制光电混合纳米马达的双极光电化学。相关研究成果于2024年6月15日发表于国际顶尖学术期刊《美国化学会杂志》。

复杂的微/纳米机器人可以通过集成几个独立的受控纳米马达来构建，以实现高度的操纵和操纵自由度。然而，由于纳米马达结构简单，材料成分有限，设计对相同的全局刺激具有独特反应的纳米马达具有挑战性。

该文中，研究人员证明了纳米马达可以用与电子电路相同的原理设计，其中半导体粒子的运动可以用同步的电信号和光信号控制。该技术依赖于半导体微粒中的瞬态双极光电化学，其中通过在时域中调制光脉冲来实现反应位点选择性。由于微粒的固有电阻和表面电容，纳米电机可以设计为电子电路，从而能够对全局电场/光场做出独特的响应，并实现所需的移动或偏转/旋转。

该项工作为独立和不受约束的纳米电机控制的操作技术提供了新的见解。最终，它在时域和频域调制中利用了基于几何的粒子分选的潜力。

附：英文原文

Title: Bipolar Photoelectrochemistry for Phase-Modulated Optoelectronic Hybrid Nanomotor

Author: Yingnan Cao, Yaxin Huang, Jing Zheng, Jingyuan Chen, Binglin Zeng, Xiang Cheng, Changjin Wu, Jizhuang Wang, Jinyao Tang

Issue&Volume: June 15, 2024

Abstract: Complex micro/nanorobots may be constructed by integrating several independent, controlled nanomotors for high degrees of freedom of maneuvering and manipulation. However, designing nanomotors with distinctive responses to the same global stimuli is challenging due to the nanomotors’ simple structure and limited material composition. In this work, we demonstrate that a nanomotor can be designed with the same principles of electronic circuits, where the motion of semiconductor particles can be controlled with synchronized electric and optical signals. This technique relies on  transient bipolar photoelectrochemistry in semiconductor microparticles, where the reaction site selectivity is realized by modulating the light pulse in the time domain. Due to the microparticles’ intrinsic resistance and surface capacitance, the nanomotors can be designed as an electronic circuit, enabling distinctive responses to the global electric/optical field and achieving the desired movement or deflection/rotation. This work gives  new insight into the manipulation technique for independent and untethered nanomotor control. Ultimately, it exploits the potential for particle sorting based on geometry in  time and frequency domain modulation.

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c03810

Source: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jacs.4c03810