Magnetic nanoparticles in medical nanorobotics

摘要

Medical nanorobotics is a field of robotics that exploits the physics at the nanoscale to implement new functionalities in untethered robotic agents aimed for ultimate operations in constrained physiological environments of the human body. The implementation of such new functionalities is achieved by embedding specific nano-components in such robotic agents. Because magnetism has been and still widely used in medical nanorobotics, magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) in particular have shown to be well suited for this purpose. To date, although such magnetic nanoparticles play a critical role in medical nanorobotics, no literature has addressed specifically the use of MNP in medical nanorobotic agents. As such, this paper presents a short introductory tutorial and review of the use of magnetic nanoparticles in the field of medical nanorobotics with some of the related main functionalities that can be embedded in nanorobotic agents.