A novel method of microfabrication and manipulation of bacterial teamsters in low Reynolds number fluidic environments

The flagellated bacteria Serratia marcescens have been employed as fluidic actuators to propel custom designed microstructures through the use of a swarm blotting technique. The novel methodology for microfabrication, manipulation, and experimentation is described in detail, and the advantages and drawbacks of alternative techniques are considered. Our results with PDMS and silicon microstructures led to the discovery of SU-8 as a suitable material. A microstructure-tracking algorithm was developed to quantify the motion. The methodology is applied in a study of effects of microstructure geometry on velocity and trajectory in an open fluidic channel. Additionally, relationships between structure dimension and velocity are discussed.