A Compact Manually Actuated Micromanipulator

This letter reports a compact, versatile, and user-friendly micromanipulator that uses an elastically deformable silicon microtweezer to grab microentities, and a micrometer head for rotational manual actuation. The micro-/macroconnection is achieved via a graphite interface that results in a compact and portable design and placement on most translation stages. The system which can operate in both air and liquid, and transport objects between the two media, has a wide range of applications. We demonstrate but a few of them, including in situ construction of microstructures in 3-D, isolation and placement of individual microparticles on designated spots on sensors, on-demand microcontact printing of microparticles, and manipulation of live stem cell spheres.