Tiny fingers build micro machines

Future micro-scale machine parts will need to be made with devices that use tiny, agile ‘fingers’ that can grip, lift and do the assembly work in a controlled, coordinated way.

Engineers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have developed and demonstrated a one-square centimetre device they call the ‘micromanipulator station’ that accomplishes this goal.

‘We think this will be useful in the microfactories of the future,’ said Laxman Saggere, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, who developed the device with graduate student Sandeep Krishnan.

Within their tiny chip-like station, four micro ‘fingers’ can grasp and move micron-sized particles as commanded. Micro tweezer-like devices now commercially available can only grip and hold small particles in place, but to manipulate them requires accessory devices that make the process cumbersome. The UIC engineers got around this problem.

’We thought of mimicking the functionality of human fingers,’ said Saggere. ‘The device has multiple, coordinated fingers that grip a particle and take it from one given position to another within a small area.’