Maverick Engineering Social Media

Dr. Cheng Luo, developer of nanoboats for transporting sensors in blood vessels

Cheng Luo is an associate professor in the Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Department. Before joining UT Arlington in the fall of 2007, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Institute for Micromanufacturing at Louisiana Tech University.

Dr. Luo’s research interests are the design, modeling and fabrication of nanosystems and biomicrosystems, combining his mechanics background with those of micro and nanofabrication. He has developed three nanolithographic methods for generating sub-50nm silicon, metal and conducting polymer structures for rational control and massive production and various micro/nanodevices (such as sensors, diodes and capacitors) based on these nanostructures.

Recently, Dr. Luo and his associates, post doctoral fellow Xinchuan Liu and Ph.D. student Hao Li, received international media coverage of their development of micro/nanoboats that have promising applications in transporting sensors in blood vessels for disease detection and carrying drugs for disease treatment.

“Watching my 2-year-old son playing with toys reminded me of toy boats I had as a child that were powered by drops of oil,” said Dr. Luo. “That got me to thinking about how really small boats could have applications such as material supply and sensing detection. They might be used to deliver materials to a particular location in a microchannel for chemical or biological analysis, or could be applied to carry sensors through a liquid sample for detecting toxic targets.”

The microboats, constructed of two layers of SU-8 polymers, use differences in surface tension as a means of propulsion. In Dr. Luo’s team’s version, isopropyl alcohol coming from a channel at the rear of the microboat creates a lower surface tension behind the boat, pushing it forward. In tests, the microboats reached speeds of up to 30 cm per second. The researchers also tested the microboat in a 94.5-cm-long channel and found that the microboat could travel 91.4 cm in 5.33 seconds.

“Further development of these microboats should give us a foundation for creating micro ‘submarines’ that would be capable of traveling in blood vessels for active drug delivery and disease diagnosis and treatment,” Dr. Luo added.

Dr. Luo received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, has published extensively in technical journals and conference proceedings, and served as session chair and/or a program committee member in a number of international MEMS and/or NEMS conferences.