Artificial cilium and arrays thereof
AssigneeCornell University
InventorsItai Cohen, Wei Wang, Qingkun Liu
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An artificial cilium device includes a substrate and a voltage-actuated cilia-shaped structure attached at a proximal end to the substrate. The voltage-actuated cilia-shaped structure has a first layer of a first material and a second layer of a second material. The second layer of the second material includes an exposed surface that causes the cilia-shaped structure to, in a working medium, (a) change shape from a first shape to a second shape responsive to application of a first voltage and (b) change shape from the second shape to the first shape responsive to application of a second voltage different than the first voltage.
Claims26
An artificial cilium comprising:
- a first actuator including a first passive layer on a first active layer;
- a second actuator including a second passive layer on a second active layer;
- a proximal panel, a distal panel, and, between the proximal panel and the distal panel, a middle panel having a length less than a distance between the proximal panel and the distal panel when the proximal panel and the distal panel are coplanar;
- and
- a wire that is (i) electrically connected to the second actuator and (ii) on each of the proximal panel and the distal panel;
- the first actuator being on each of, and spanning a proximal gap between, the proximal panel and the middle panel;
- the second actuator being on each of, spanning a distal gap between, the middle panel and the distal panel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.