Smallest walking robot makes microscale measurements

Cornell University researchers have created the smallest walking robot yet. Its mission: to be tiny enough to interact with waves of visible light and still move independently, so that it can maneuver to specific locations -- in a tissue sample, for instance -- to take images and measure forces at the scale of some of the body's smallest structures.

The team's paper, "Magnetically Programmed Diffractive Robotics," published in Science.

"A walking robot that's small enough to interact with and shape light effectively takes a microscope's lens and puts it directly into the microworld," said Paul McEuen, professor of physical science emeritus, who led the team. "It can perform up-close imaging in ways that a regular microscope never could."

Cornell scientists already hold the world's record for the world's smallest walking robot at 40-70 microns.

The new diffractive robots are "going to blow that record out of ...