TY - JOUR A1 - Kravanja, Gaia A1 - Kriegl, Raphael A1 - Hribar, Luka A1 - Glavan, Gašper A1 - Drevenšek‐Olenik, Irena A1 - Shamonin (Chamonine), Mikhail A1 - Jezeršek, Matija T1 - Magnetically Actuated Surface Microstructures for Efficient Transport and Tunable Separation of Droplets and Solids JF - Advanced Engineering Materials N2 - Efficient transportation of droplets (∽10 ¹ ̶̶̶̶ 10 ² µl) and small solid objects (∽10 ¹ ̶ 10 ² mm ³ ) have important applications in many fields, such as microfluidics, lab‐on‐a‐chip devices, drug delivery, etc. A novel multifunctional surface consisting of a periodic array of micro‐lamellae from a soft magnetoactive elastomer (MAE) on a plastic substrate is reported for these purposes. The physical origin of the propulsion is the bending of soft magnetic lamellae in non‐uniform magnetic fields, which is also observed in uniform magnetic fields. The magnetoactive surface is fabricated using a facile and rapid method of laser ablation. The propulsion of items is realized using a four‐pole rotating magnet. This results in a cyclic lamellar fringe motion over the micro‐structured surface and brings an advantage of easy reciprocation of transport by rotation reversal. Two modes of object transportation are identified: “pushing” mode for precise control of droplet and solid positioning and “bouncing” mode for heavier solid objects transportation. A water droplet of 5 μl or a glass sphere with a 2.1 mm diameter can be moved at a maximum speed of 60 mm s ⁻¹ . The multifunctionality of the proposed mechatronic platform is demonstrated on the examples of selective solid‐liquid separation and droplet merging. KW - Keywordslaser micromachinings KW - magnetoactive elastomers KW - magnetoresponsivesurfaces KW - object separations KW - object transportations Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/adem.202301000 SN - 1527-2648 VL - 25 IS - 22 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - Wiley-VCH ER -