Individual single bacterium attachment on microobject using optical tweezers for bacteria-driven microrobots

Micro/nano robots have been actively studied. Recently, the micro living organisms, especially flagellated bacteria, have been used as the driving forces for the microobjects. To achieve the more precise control of the bacteria-driven microobjects, we previously proposed to control the motion of the bacteria-driven microobjects by local environmental control with micro/nano pipettes. To achieve such control method, furthermore, it is needed to control the attaching position and attaching number of the bacteria onto the microobject, unlike the conventional random and mass attachment. In this paper, we propose the method to attach individual single bacterium onto a microbead using optical tweezers for the fabrication of the bacteria-driven microobject. We demonstrate the attachment of the single bacterium onto the 3 μm microbead using optical tweezers. And, it is confirmed that the bacterium is attached on the microbead firmly by observing the movement of the bacteria-driven microbead.