Physical pick-and-place promises specificity, precision, and programmed motion, a feature making microrobotic manipulation amenable to automation for the construction of microsystems. Despite the significant progress made, a long-standing difficulty is the release of micro objects from the end effector due to strong adhesion forces at the micro scale. This research focuses on the development of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based microgrippers that integrate an active release mechanism for pick-and-release micromanipulation. The performance was experimentally quantified through the manipulation of 7.5-10.9µm glass spheres, and for the first time, achieves a 100% success rate in release (based on 700 trials) and a release accuracy of 0.45±0.24µm. Example patterns were then constructed through automated microrobotic pick-and-place of microspheres, achieving a speed of 6sec/sphere. To further miniaturize the devices for nanomanipulation, a novel fabrication process was developed. Through the manipulation of 100nm gold nano-particles inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM), preliminary demonstrations were made.

Physical pick-and-place promises specificity, precision, and programmed motion, a feature making microrobotic manipulation amenable to automation for the construction of microsystems. Despite the significant progress made, a long-standing difficulty is the release of micro objects from the end effector due to strong adhesion forces at the micro scale. This research focuses on the development of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) based microgrippers that integrate an active release mechanism for pick-and-release micromanipulation. The performance was experimentally quantified through the manipulation of 7.5-10.9µm glass spheres, and for the first time, achieves a 100% success rate in release (based on 700 trials) and a release accuracy of 0.45±0.24µm. Example patterns were then constructed through automated microrobotic pick-and-place of microspheres, achieving a speed of 6sec/sphere. To further miniaturize the devices for nanomanipulation, a novel fabrication process was developed. Through the manipulation of 100nm gold nano-particles inside a scanning electron microscope (SEM), preliminary demonstrations were made.