科学家用微型机器人建造了世界上最小的房子
Micro-robots have built the world's smallest house

由专筑网王帅，邢子编译

Femto-ST研究所的一名法国研究人员使用微型机器人组装了世界上最小的房子，这座房子的高度仅有0.015毫米。

这座小房子的占地面积为0.02毫米×0.01毫米，比普通的两层房子小50万倍。

这座房子坐落在一根光纤的顶部，有一个传统的人字形屋顶、四个窗户、一个门、还有烟囱和墙壁，房子的制作材料为0.0012毫米厚的超薄二氧化硅膜。

French researchers from the Femto-ST Institute have used micro-robots to assemble the world's smallest house, which stands just 0.015 millimetres high.
The tiny house, which has a footprint of 0.02 millimetres by 0.01 millimetres, is around half a million times smaller than a regular two-storey house.
Sitting on the top of an optical fibre the house has a traditional gabled roof, four windows, a door, chimney and walls made of an ultra-thin silica membrane that is just 0.0012 millimetres thick.


房子有人字形屋顶，窗户和门，由纳米机器人组装／The micro house, which was assembled by nano-robots, has a pitched roof, windows and doors

虽然这座房子只能容纳一些微生物，但是这家位于Besançon的Femto-ST研究所都在为这项纳米机器人结构技术的突破而欢呼。

工程师 Jean-Yves Rauch说：“我们在光纤上建造微型住宅，这表明我们能够以高精度实现这些光纤上的微系统组件的安装。”

“我们第一次能够以不到两纳米（0.002微米）的精度来实现图形化和装配，这对机器人和光学领域来说是一个非常重要的突破。”

While the house would make inadequate shelter for any animal bigger than a micro-organism, its engineers from the Femto-ST Institute, a research organisation in Besançon, France, are celebrating the breakthrough in nano-robotic construction.
"We decided to build the micro-house on the fibre to show that we are able to realise these microsystem assemblies on top of an optical fibre with high accuracy," said engineer Jean-Yves Rauch.
"For the first time we were able to realise patterning and assembly with less than two nanometres [0.002 micrometres] of accuracy, which is a very important result for the robotics and optical community."


光纤顶部组装的纳米结构／The nano-house was assembled on top of an optical fibre

工程师们用一种新的纳米组装系统建造了这座房子，这个系统中最重要的部件是真空室中工作的微型机器人，它使用离子束从硅膜薄片上切出房子的墙壁和屋顶。

工程师将房子的零部件切成片状，然后激发它让其自我折叠成房子的形状，就像自动折纸一样。

工程师们用较弱的离子束将屋顶和墙壁焊接到一起，然后把离子束和气体结合注入，在屋顶上创建出瓷砖图案。

The engineers constructed the house using a new nano-assembly system that involved a tiny robot working in a vacuum chamber. An ion beam was used to cut the walls and roof of the house out of the fine sheet of silica membrane.
By cutting just part way into the sheet, it triggered the membrane to self-fold into its house shape, like autonomous origami.
The engineers used the ion beam on a lower setting to weld the roof and walls into place, and combined the beam with a gas injection to create the tiling pattern on the roof.


微型机器人从硅片上切下的房屋墙壁／The house's walls were cut by a tiny robot from a sheet of silica

研究小组上周在《真空科技杂志》(JVSTA)上发表了他们的研究成果。虽然纳米结构的进步对机器人建筑领域的发展意义没有那么重大，但这对机器人技术在其他领域的发展具有非常重要的意义。

《真空科技杂志》的主办方-美国物理学会的专家坦言：“随着这一技术的进步，与人类头发一样细的光纤可以插入到喷气式发动机和血管等无法进入的地方，用来检测辐射水平或病毒。”

与此同时，微型住宅的发展从未止步，上周，BIG建筑事务所在纽约北部展出一个占地面积为17平方米的预制房屋模型。

图片提供：Femto-ST研究所

The team published their experiment last week in the Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A (JVST A). The advances in nan0-construction might not mean much to the growing field of robotic building construction, but it will be significant to other areas of robotics.
"With this advancement, optical fibres as thin as human hair can be inserted into inaccessible locations like jet engines and blood vessels to detect radiation levels or viral molecules," said the American Institute of Physics, publisher of the JVST A.
Meanwhile, the trend for micro-homes continues, with architecture firm BIG last week unveiling a prototype prefab cabin in Upstate New York that has a footprint of 17 square metres.
Images courtesy of the Femto-ST Institute.


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