Principle of a Submerged Freeze Microgripper

Manipulating microscopic objects still remains a very challenging task. In this paper, we propose a freeze microgripper working in an innovative environment, i.e. liquid medium.We first review a comparative analyse of the influences of dry and liquid media on contact and non contact forces. It clearly shows the interest of the liquid medium. A survey of different microhandling systems based on the use of ice is also given. The proposed submerged microgripper exploits the liquid surroundings to generate an ice microvolume as an active end-effector. Its principle based on Peltier effect is described and the physical characteristics of the prototype are detailed. We present the results of the numerical modelling of the prototype developed. Experimentations validate the thermal principle. Using it for micromanipulation tasks is the purpose of further work.