Motion control and manipulation of nanowires under electric-fields in fluid suspension

We present an electrophoresis (EP)-based motion control and manipulation of individual nanowires in fluid suspension. The suspended nanowires in dilute solution are precisely driven by the controlled electric field generated by a set of lattice-shape distributed electrode arrays. Built on the dynamic model of nanowire motion in fluid suspension, a vision-based path-following control strategy is presented to guide the nanowire to follow a given desired trajectory. The control system design incorporates the potential function approach to compensate for un-modeled complex electro-osmotic flow motion. We design an integrated process to steer, orientate and deposit multiple nanowires to form various geometric shapes. Extensive experimental results are presented to demonstrate the motion control and manipulation algorithms.