Electrical Propulsion and Cargo Transport of Microbowl Shaped Janus Particles

Herein the effective electrical propulsion, cargo trapping, and transport capabilities of microbowl-shaped Janus particles (JPs) are demonstrated and evaluated. These active JPs are made by deposition of Au and Ti layers onto sacrificial spherical polystyrene particles, followed by oxidation of the Ti to TiO2. In contrast to the commonly studied spherical JP, the dual broken symmetry of both geometrical and electrical properties of the microbowl renders a strong dependence of its mobility and cargo loading on the order of the layering of Au and TiO2. Specifically, an opposite direction of motion is obtained for interchanged layers of Au and TiO2, using only electrical propulsion as the sole mechanism of motion. The concave side of the microbowl exhibits a negative dielectrophoretic trap of large size wherein trapped cargo is protected from hydrodynamic shearing, leading to an enhanced cargo loading capacity compared to that obtained using common spherical JP. Such enhanced cargo capability of the microbowl along with the ease of engineering it by interchanging the order of the layers are very attractive for future in vitro biological and biomedical applications.