Regulating Motion of Magnetic Capsules in Microfluidic Systems

Magnetic microcapsules are often used as vesicles in targeted drug delivery systems, where focused magnetic field propels the capsules to highly specific locations in tissue. To fully realize this potential it is important to understand the dynamics of magnetically-responsive micrometer sized particles in viscous fluids and the effect of boundaries on particle motion. Furthermore, for practical biomedical applications, it could be useful to create synthetic micrometer-sized vesicles able to perform controlled self-propelled motion. Herein, using computer simulations, we examine the motion of magnetically-responsive synthetic microcapsules that able to crawl along walls in microchannels filled with a viscous fluid. The compliant fluid-filled capsules considered in this study encompass superparamagnetic nanoparticles in their solid shells and, therefore, can be manipulated by alternating magnetic forces.