A wide variety of applications are envisioned and demonstrated with artificial micro‐ and nanomachines, ranging from targeted drug or gene delivery, microsurgery, environmental sensing, and many more. Here, it is demonstrated how helical nanomachines can be used to measure and map the local mechanical properties of a complex heterogeneous environment. The positions of the nanomachines are precisely controlled using externally applied magnetic fields, while their instantaneous orientations provide estimation of the viscosity of the surrounding medium with high spatial and temporal accuracy. The measurement technique can be applied to both Newtonian as well as shear thinning media, and all experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical analysis. It is believed that this novel application of helical nanomachines can be particularly relevant to biophysical studies and microfluidic technologies.

中文翻译：

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螺旋纳米机作为移动粘度计

人工微型和纳米机器可预见并演示各种应用，包括靶向药物或基因递送，显微外科手术，环境传感等。在这里，展示了如何使用螺旋纳米机来测量和绘制复杂异质环境的局部机械性能。纳米机器的位置是使用外部施加的磁场精确控制的，而它们的瞬时方向可以以高的空间和时间精度估算周围介质的粘度。该测量技术既可以应用于牛顿介质，也可以应用于剪切稀化介质，所有实验结果均与理论分析相吻合。