Defence of dissertation in the field of Automation, Systems and Control Engineering, M.Sc. (Tech.) Zoran Cenev

How a single magnet can control the movement of individual microparticles?

Since the advent of the arguably first known compound microscope (objective lens and a specimen with an eyepiece) in the 17-th century, human-kind has unlocked the universe of small-scaled matter. In an astoundingly short span of time, the locomotion, sensing and intelligence capabilities of living microorganisms can be observed and understood. During the last few decades, a myriad of artificially built small-scale agents became able to emulate the movement of their natural counterparts, thanks to the complex machinery dedicated to induce precise movement from the millimeter to nanometer scale.

   Numerous particle manipulation systems utilizing optics as well as magnetic, acous-tic or electric fields, or a combination of them, have been developed. Magnetic sys-tems classically use multiple electromagnets, permanent magnet in combination with substrate-embedded current wires, Helmholtz coils or electromagnetic needles. Parti-cle manipulation techniques using single sources of a magnetic field, such as a per-manent magnet or electromagnetic needles have not been sufficiently addressed.

   The subject of this dissertation is to study novel manipulation techniques and govern-ing principles for controlling the motion of magnetic and non-magnetic microparticles by utilization of only one source of a magnetic field, i.e. an electro magnet or a perma-nent magnet. The work resulted in three new techniques and two new biological rele-vant applications in contact and non-contact manipulation of magnetic particles by electromagnetic needle. Furthermore, the work also resulted in discovery of two new motion modes along with a proposed new theoretical model for manipulation of sphe-roid particles on the air-magnetic liquid interface. The results of this research show novel magnetic based manipulation techniques, extend the known application domain of micro- and nanorobotic systems and present novel manipulation techniques and capabilities on air-magnetic liquid interfaces

Opponent: Professor Sylvain Martel, Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada

Custos is Professor  Quan Zhou, Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering, Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation.

Thesis web page

Contact information: Zoran Cenev, [email protected], +358 44 23 76 290