Prickly Janus magnetic and photonic microrobots for exosome assays

Microrobots have been widely reported as a powerful tool for biosensing. Attempts in this field tend to improve their functions by using different fabrication technologies. In this paper, a novel prickly Janus magnetic and photonic microrobot is presented for efficient exosome assays by integrating induced self-assembly and hydrothermal synthesis techniques. The induced self-assembly results in Janus magnetic and photonic microrobots with magnetic controllability and striking structure colors, making them ideal for efficient multiplex assays. The hydrothermal synthesis helps the formation of prickly surface, endowing the microrobot with large surface for capturing targets. It was demonstrated that these prickly Janus magnetic and photonic microrobots can carry out multiplex exosome assays with high sensitivity benefiting from their stable structure colors, magnetic autonomous motion, and capacity of enriching.