Diodes Could Drive Swimming Micro-Robots

finisterre writes "Diodes can be made to 'swim' through salt water by hitting them with an alternating electric field. The applied field induces a current that sets up a field between the diode's electrical contacts and creates a propulsive force. The abstract of the paper in Nature Materials is freely available. New Scientist has videos of the swimming diodes in action."

Comments

Re:Voltage?

[Bromskloss]

Anyone know what voltage was used here.

They used an electric field of 3000 V/m to 15000 V/m. Using the distances they said they had between the electrodes, it seems that for these particular experiments, the voltage was in the range of 75 V to 1050 V.

Re:Stealth

[KokorHekkus]

Not just US and russian navy but also Mitsubishi. They built the experimental boat Yamato 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_1. Just wanted to give you a heads up before you shoot anyone for no reason you know ;-)

Re:Voltage?

[Bromskloss]

That's... that's a pretty large range. You sure you didn't mean to write 150 V?

I actually meant what I wrote. I got 75 V from multiplying the weakest electric field with the shortest distance I found they had between electrodes and, 1050 V from multiplying the strongest electric field with the longest distance. That is not to say that they actually used the combinations necessary to produce these extreme values, but just that the voltages have to be somewhere in between.