PhD position : Magnetic aerogel granular materials for soft robots – CEMEF (Sophia Antipolis) and SIMM (Paris) (22/06/2025)

Magnetic soft robots are capable of tether-free, instantaneous and “programmable” shape change in a magnetic field, which is promising for various biomedical and industrial applications, including minimally invasive medical procedures and targeted delivery. Precise magnetic actuation requires the use of bottom-up fabrication techniques in which magnetic interactions are well-controlled on the level of the structural element. The objective of this PhD project is the fabrication of magnetic soft robots via the assembly of magnetic, bio-based, porous particles with tailored magnetic anisotropy and mechanical properties. The use of these new building blocks should allow for simple and scalable shaping of soft magnetic robots. Magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles will be embedded within bio-based aerogel beads (nanostructured, stable and porous materials) and different methods for the assembly of these beads into macroscopic structures will be investigated. Also the magneto-mechanical properties and actuation capacity of the granular materials will be explored towards their use as soft robots.

Publié le 22/06/2025