{
  "abstract": "The controllable branch guidance of magnetic Janus microrobots in bifurcating microchannels is governed by the coupled effects of background advection, magnetophoretic migration and particle structure. Here, a three-dimensional numerical framework was developed to investigate the magnetically controlled transport of Au/Ni–SiO2 Janus microrobots in an idealised low-Reynolds-number bifurcating microchannel. An equivalent three-axis Helmholtz–Maxwell coil model was used to reconstruct an oblique magnetic-field gradient directed towards the target branch, and the resulting electromagnetic field was coupled with particle tracking. Over 0.5–7.0 T m−1, the reconstructed gradients closely reproduced the prescribed values, whilst the magnetic flux density remained above the adopted near-saturation criterion for Ni. For the baseline microrobot with a 120 nm Ni layer, the target-branch transport efficiency increased from 42.67% at 1.5 T m−1 to 100% at 7.0 T m−1. Increasing the inlet velocity from 0.25 to 1.50 mm s−1 shifted the guidance response towards higher gradients, reflecting stronger competition between axial advection and lateral magnetophoretic migration. Increasing the Ni-layer thickness from 150 to 390 nm raised the magnetic Ni volume fraction from 8.45% to 20.74% and reduced the minimum tested gradient for complete target-branch transport from 5.5 to 2.5 T m−1, a reduction of approximately 54.5%. Mechanistic analysis showed that the increase in magnetic moment substantially exceeded the increase in hydrodynamic resistance, and the transport data for different Ni-layer thicknesses were largely represented by a common response using a dimensionless magnetic-guidance parameter. These results provide a quantitative basis for co-optimising microrobot magnetic structure, background flow and external magnetic actuation.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "School of Electronic and Information Engineering, University of Science and Technology Liaoning Anshan 114051 China"
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 4,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Junbo Yang",
      "orcid": "0009-0001-6616-2956"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Meijuan Li"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Yonghui Yang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Xue-Bo Chen",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-6799-7667"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/1w530ze95g4ky.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1039/d6ra08407a",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13659811/?tool=EBI",
  "id": "1w530ze95g4ky",
  "issns": [
    "2046-2069"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13659811",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "Chemistry"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3104|Micro and Nano Robotics"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7221614019",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13659811/pdf/?tool=EBI",
  "pmcid": "PMC13659811",
  "pmid": "42871657",
  "published": "2026-10-13",
  "publisher": "Royal Society of Chemistry",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/1w530ze95g4ky.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:21Z",
      "native_id": "PMC:PMC13659811",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/PMC/PMC13659811"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-01T12:23:37Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13659811",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1039/d6ra08407a"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "openalex:3104|Micro and Nano Robotics",
      "subfield": "condensed-matter"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Numerical design of magnetic-field-gradient-guided branch targeting of Au/Ni–SiO2 Janus microrobots in a bifurcating microchannel",
  "title_text": "Numerical design of magnetic-field-gradient-guided branch targeting of Au/Ni–SiO2 Janus microrobots in a bifurcating microchannel",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-02T12:20:51Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/1w530ze95g4ky",
  "venue": "RSC advances",
  "versions": []
}