Driving method of microtool by horizontally arranged permanent magnets for single cell manipulation

This paper presents an innovative driving method for a magnetically driven microtool to achieve precise positioning control while maintaining a high power output derived from commercialized permanent magnets. An effective driving methodology using permanent magnets, whose axes are parallel to driving direction, is applied to reduce friction force on the microtool. The positioning accuracy improves by five times and the response speed becomes ten times faster against the driving stage than in the conventional method. Furthermore, this method has been extended to two-degree-of-freedom movements, and the performance of the magnetically driven microtools is experimentally validated by oocyte manipulation. (c) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3459040]