ABSTRACT
Biological organisms use hair-like cilia and flagella to perform fluid manipulations essential for their function and survival. This chapter describes the fabrication, kinematics, and applications of biomimetic magnetic cilia that can be integrated into electromechanical devices to enhance their functionality. The magnetic cilia are fabricated using micromachining and are actuated with a rotating permanent magnet. The cilia beat in a time-irreversible fashion enabling fluid transport at a low Reynolds number. Today, the use of semiconductor fabrication technology for making microscale electromechanical devices (MEMS) has become widespread and such devices are often used as sensors and actuators in various applications. The development of synthetic cilia that can perform similar non-reciprocal, spatially asymmetric beating pattern could prove useful for fluid and particle transport in lab-on-a-chip and bio-MEMS devices. The ability of an array of magnetic cilia to produce fluid circulation has to be related to time-irreversible, spatially asymmetric oscillations.
