Recent Advances in Motion Control of Micro/Nanomotors

Abstract

Micro/nanomotors are able to convert energy in different forms into propulsion and movement with predesigned directions and velocities, enabling them to be self-propelled carriers and vehicles for the delivery of active pharmaceutical ingredients and other biomedical cargos to the target sites such as tumors. However, the inadequate energy and noncontrollable moving directions remain the grand challenges for their promising applications. Recently, an increasing attention has been paid to these issues and numerous reported researches have focused to design and develop more efficient and precisely controllable micro/nanomotors with different methods. This review aims to summarize those studies and to introduce newly developed micro/nanomotors including synthetic micro/nanomotors and biohybrid motors, discussing the control mechanisms as well as advantages and limitations thereof. Conclusions and future perspectives are also provided in brief.