On-Demand Disassembly of Paramagnetic Nanoparticle Chains for Microrobotic Cargo Delivery

Paramagnetic nanoparticles are considered as attractive building blocks, particularly for robotic delivery of drugs. Although paramagnetic nanoparticles can be effectively gathered and transported using external magnetic fields, the disassembly process is yet to be fully investigated to avoid the formation of aggregations. In this paper, we report a novel method of controllable disassembly of paramagnetic nanoparticle chains using a predefined dynamic magnetic field. The dynamic field is capable of performing spreading and fragmentation of the particle chains simultaneously. Using the magnetic dipole–dipole repulsive forces, the final area covered by the particle chains swells up to 545% of the initial area. The final length distribution presents a strong relationship with the frequency of the dynamic field in deionized (DI) water and two kinds of biofluids. An analytical model of phase lag is proposed, which shows good agreement with the experimental results. Furthermore, we also present an assembly process using a rotating magnetic field, indicating that the assembly disassembly process is reversible. In addition, batch-cargo delivery of polystyrene microbeads using the nanoparticle chains as swarm-like nanorobots is demonstrated.