Harness enough energy for locomotion of an artificial nanoswimmer: Design and simulation

Abstract

In the past decade, advancement in the field of nanotechnology enables us to create autonomous nano-machine in which nanoswimmer finds an important place. A major challenge to realize nanoswimmer is on-board energy harnessing for locomotion of nanoswimmer in complex surrounding media. In this paper, a design of piezoelectric based energy harnessing systems is proposed and simulated using COMSOL. The design is inspired by amplified stressing on trunk of a tree due to movement of its branched out structure. Amplified stressing is harmful to tree but the concept on contrary is useful in current context and envisages amplified generation of electricity to actuate nanoswimmer. It has been observed through simulation results that amplification of stresses to the tune of 68.95% is achievable by simple primary branching. Corresponding increase in generated electric potential is around 60% which is quite significant and promising towards attempts to realize a nanoswimmer.