Universal Control for Micromotor Swarms with a Hybrid Sonoelectrode

Enabled by active motion of microrobots, conventional biological detection and chemical analyses limited by passive diffusion can be significantly enhanced with fast testing speed and unique sensitiveness. However, controlled release and precise enrichment of microrobot swarms are still difficult to accomplish and thus prohibit them away from practical applications. Here, an efficient and versatile strategy utilizing a needle‐shaped hybrid sonoelectrode to disperse and aggregate distinct micromotors is presented, remarkably accelerating mass transfer and enhancing the signal intensity. Hydrogen bubbles generated at the tip of charged electrode can oscillate as actuated by the acoustic field, creating intensified vortexes to disperse micromotors spontaneously. Via removing the attached bubble, the sonoelectrode serving as solid needle isolator is capable of collecting micromotors in a large scale with acoustic streaming in the working reservoir at higher ultrasound frequency. Numerical calculation reveals the streaming profiles with/without microbubbles, and manipulations on classic spherical and tubular micromotor models confirm that the acoustic‐powered prototype device is effective for controlling different swarming behaviors in microfluidic channels. Overall, the proposed hybrid sonoelectrode offers a universal and rapid strategy to tailor micromotor swarm behaviors, advancing intelligent microrobots to be featured with active enrichment and compatible for next‐generation sensitive portable detection microsystems. Distinctive swarming behaviors of classical micromotors in dispersion and aggregation patterns are universally tailored by an acoustic manipulation platform in a microreservoir. With a hybrid sonoelectrode, hydrogen bubbles generated by electrolysis oscillate to disperse micromotors. Additionally, sonoelectrode creates a pitfall in acoustic field and gathers massive micromotors swarming beneath it, offering great potentials for next‐generation active detection microsystems.