Ice grippers have been used for manipulating objects in air, as described in [9]–[12]. The dimensions of gripped objects are typically bigger than 200 µm and the main applications are optical, mechanical or electrical microcomponents assembly [11]. Their thermal principle is based either on Joule-Thompson effect, or Peltier effect. Water must be provided by an external device because they work in air, and capillary forces appear during the release because water does not evaporate completely. Then they have to be combined with other release strategies to detach manipulated objects. In addition, they must work with particular environmental conditions like low temperature and low humidity [9], [13]. The miniaturization of these grippers is limited by the release difficulties. Traditionally, standard gripping systems, like friction tweezers or vacuum grippers, are used for grasping microobjects. Simple tweezers can be applied in many applicahal-00335322
To submit an update or takedown request for this paper, please submit an Update/Correction/Removal Request.
