704
5, OCTOBER 2010
Design, Implementation, and Force Modeling
of Quadrupole Magnetic Tweezers
Zhipeng Zhang, Student Member, IEEE, Kui Huang, and Chia-Hsiang Menq, Senior Member, IEEE
Abstract—This paper presents the design, implementation, and
force modeling of quadrupole magnetic tweezers, which are ca-
pable of exerting magnetic forces in arbitrary 2-D directions on
magnetic particles in the workspace. A lumped-parameter model
based on magnetic monopole approximation is employed to de-
scribe the magnetic field generated by the quadrupole magnetic
tweezers in the workspace. In this model, the magnetic field gener-
ated by each magnetic pole is approximated by the field of a point
magnetic charge associated with the magnetic pole, and the total
magnetic field produced by the system is obtained by applying the
principle of superposition. An analytical force model considering
the interaction between a magnetic particle and the magnetic field
is then developed. The derived force model accurately character-
izes the nonlinearity of the magnetic force exerting on the magnetic
particle with respect to the applied currents to the coils and the po-
sition dependency of the magnetic force in the workspace. The
directionality as well as the force generation anisotropy of the de-
signed system is then explored using the force model. The model
also facilitates the implementation of a feedback control law to sta-
bilize and control the motion of a magnetic particle. Experimental
results in terms of the magnetic force in relation to stable motion
control of a magnetic particle are used to validate the force model.
Index Terms—Magnetic circuit, magnetic force model, magnetic
monopole, magnetic tweezers.
I. INTRODUCTION
ICROMANIPULATION tools such as microcan-
M tilevers in atomic force microscopy, microneedles, mi-
cropipettes, optical tweezers, and magnetic tweezers have been
utilized in many applications in the fields of biophysics and cell
biology, e.g., single molecule characterization [1]–[5], intra-
cellular investigation [6]–[8], cell membrane probing [9]–[11],
etc. Among these tools, magnetic tweezers, which employ mag-
netic particles to manipulate biological samples using magnetic
forces, offer two advantages. First, magnetic force is noncontact
and is capable of multiple degrees of freedom actuation with-
out mechanical cascading [12], [13]. The magnetic tweezers,
therefore, do not suffer from the invasiveness of the attached
probe, such as cantilever, fiber, or pipette, during manipulation
or the limitation on the resulting force’s direction. When com-
pared with optical tweezers, magnetic tweezers do not cause
photo damage [14]. Second, magnetic forces can be applied
Manuscript received May 27, 2009; revised August 7, 2009; accepted Septem-
ber 3, 2009. Date of publication October 6, 2009; date of current version August
4, 2010. Recommended by Technical Editor A. Menciassi. This work was sup-
ported by the National Science Foundation under Grant BES-0619472.
The authors are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio
State University, Columbus, OH 43210 USA (e-mail: zhang.473@osu.edu;
huang.579@osu.edu; menq.1@osu.edu).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMECH.2009.2032179
1083-4435/$26.00 © 2009 IEEE
IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 15, NO.
specifically to the magnetic particles because typical biological
materials are hardly magnetic susceptible [15].
Magnetic tweezers usually use electromagnets and tip-shaped
poles to generate a magnetic field gradient and exert magnetic
force on microscopic magnetic particles. They can be divided
into distinct categories according to the number of magnetic
poles employed. The single-pole magnetic tweezers [16]–[19]
are straightforward to implement, but can only generate at-
tractive forces toward the pole tip. In order to improve the
degrees of freedom of magnetic force application, multipolar
magnetic tweezers [20]–[28] were developed. Harber and Wirtz
used a two-pole setup [20] to apply back-and-forth force be-
tween two opposing poles. de Veries et al. [22] implemented
a micromagnetic manipulator with three in-plane poles for 2-
D force application. Amblard et al. [23] introduced an eight-
pole apparatus controlled by four coils to generate 2-D lateral
motions and rotations. With a six-pole instrument, Grosse and
Croquette [24] realized magnetic force generation in vertical and
near horizontal directions. Fisher et al. [25] presented a hexapole
design that was able to generate magnetic forces in arbitrary
3-D directions.
It is necessary to have a force model that establishes the re-
lationship between the magnetic force exerting on the magnetic
particle and the applied currents to the actuating coils so as to
enable controllable force application using magnetic tweezers.
An effective force model can also facilitate the implementation
of feedback control for advanced manipulation of the magnetic
particle. Increasing the number of magnetic poles raises the
degrees of freedom of magnetic force application, whereas it
also increases the complexity in magnetic force modeling. The
current–force relation is usually determined through model fit-
ting, using the data acquired by experimental calibration for
single-pole and two-pole magnetic tweezers. Kollmannsberger
and Fabry [19] calibrated the magnetic force to be a nonlinear
function of the applied current and the distance to the pole tip
for their single-pole instrument using the viscous drag force
method. Hosu et al. [21] performed calibration to their two-pole
setup by measuring the bead’s magnetization and the intensity of
the magnetic field, besides the viscous drag method. It, however,
becomes very difficult to calibrate the force model without prior
knowledge of the model structure for magnetic tweezers having
more than two poles because the magnetic force is generally a
nonlinear function of multiple (≥5) variables, i.e., the position
[x y (z)] of the magnetic particle and the currents [I1 I2 I3 ... ]
applied to the coils. Finite-element analysis has been used to
determine the magnetic field generated by specific input cur-
rents, whereas no analytical magnetic force model that relates
the applied currents to the coils with the magnetic force exerting
ZHANG et al.: DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND FORCE MODELING OF QUADRUPOLE MAGNETIC TWEEZERS 705

Fig. 1. Design concept of the quadrupole magnetic tweezers.

on the magnetic particle, to the authors’ knowledge, has been

reported in literature.
In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and
force modeling of quadrupole magnetic tweezers. Magnetic
monopole approximation and principle of superposition are
employed to model the magnetic field, generated by multi-
ple poles, in the workspace. The applicability of this approach
is validated by finite-element analysis. An analytical lumped-
parameter force model considering the interaction between a
magnetic particle and the magnetic field is then developed. The Fig. 2. (a) Four poles attached on a 25 mm × 25 mm coverslip. (b) Zoomed-in
nonlinearity with respect to the applied currents and the position image of the magnetic poles.
dependency of the magnetic force are characterized using this
analytical force model. The force model enables us to explore
in Fig. 1. When electric current is applied to a coil, magnetic
the capability of the quadrupole magnetic tweezers in and an-
flux is generated and permeated through the magnetic pole to
alyze their limitation in force generation. It also facilitates the
the pole tip. The flux then strongly diverges outward from the
implementation of a model-based feedback control law to stabi-
pole tip, resulting in a high field gradient in the workspace. The
lize and control the motion of a magnetic particle. Experimental
magnetic gradient forces will therefore be exerted on the mag-
results in terms of the magnetic force in relation to stable mo-
netic particles. By using four poles, magnetic force in arbitrary
tion control of a magnetic particle are used to validate the force
2-D directions can be generated.
model.
The magnetic poles are manufactured using high-
This paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the
permeability foil acquired from MuShield [29]. It is made of
design and implementation of the quadrupole magnetic tweez-
nickel-iron-molybdenum alloy, which offers high permeability
ers. Magnetic monopole approximation and force modeling are
with minimum hysteresis loss. The foil thickness is 100 µm
presented in Section III. The directionality as well as the force
and saturation of magnetic field is around 0.9 T. It is machined
generation anisotropy of the designed system is then analyzed
to form the desired geometry of the magnetic pole, using wire
using the force model in Section IV. Section V presents the ex-
electrical discharge machining, which employs a thin wire to
perimental results to verify the force model, and conclusion is
cut materials by electrical discharge, and the machining preci-
made in Section VI.
sion is ±5 µm. The machined poles, as shown in Fig. 2, are
then glued onto a No. 1 coverslip (thickness 0.13–0.16 mm),
II. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE QUADRUPOLE using low-viscosity epoxy under a 5× magnifier. The pole has
MAGNETIC TWEEZERS
a round tip whose radius is about 30 µm. The distance between
The design concept of the quadrupole magnetic tweezers the pole tips is a design variable and determined by the desired
is illustrated in Fig. 1. Four magnetic poles are placed in a dimension of the workspace and the maximum magnetic force.
quadrupole configuration for 2-D magnetic force application. The distance from the center of the workspace to the pole tip
Each magnetic pole has one actuating coil. All the coils and point is 405 µm for the specific tweezers in Fig. 2. The yoke
magnetic poles are connected by a magnetic yoke to complete is designed as a ring shape with four protrusions, on which the
the magnetic circuit and increase the efficiency of magnetic field four coils are mounted, and it is made of cold rolled steel. The
generation. The four pole tips enclose the workspace, as shown yoke is then fixed on top of the magnetic poles to complete
706
Fig. 3. (a) Picture of the quadrupole magnetic tweezers. (b) Picture of the
quadrupole magnetic tweezers assembled on an inverted microscope.
the magnetic circuit. The coils are wound by hand using AWG
25 (diameter = 0.455 mm) magnetic wires, and each coil con-
sists of 21 turns. As the resistance of the coil is very low (about
0.2 Ω), currents up to 3 A can be applied constantly without gen-
erating significant heat to the setup. A picture of the designed
magnetic tweezers is shown in Fig. 3(a). The whole setup is
then placed on an inverted microscope (Nikon TE2000-U), as
shown in Fig. 3(b). Since the setup is less than 5 mm thick, it
can fit between a high-numerical-aperture (NA) objective lens
and a high-NA condenser of the microscope.
III. MAGNETIC FORCE MODELING
A. Magnetic Field Analysis
When viewing magnetic poles of the tweezers from the
workspace, they are sharp tips and generate a magnetic field that
looks to the magnetic particle as though it is generated by point
sources. Magnetic monopole approximation [25], [30] is there-
fore employed in this analysis to model the magnetic field gen-
erated by the quadrupole magnetic tweezers in the workspace.
In this model, the magnetic field generated by each magnetic
pole is approximated by the field of a point magnetic charge
associated with the magnetic pole, and the total magnetic field
produced by the system is obtained by applying the principle of
superposition. Although a magnetic monopole is a hypothetical
point source, this approximation greatly simplifies the process
of modeling and yields an expression of the magnetic field in the
workspace similar to that of an electric field. More importantly,
IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 15, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2010
this expression enables us later to derive a compact analytical
force model that accurately characterizes the nonlinearity of the
magnetic force exerting on the magnetic particle with respect to
the applied currents to the coils and the position dependency of
the magnetic force in the workspace.
We assume that magnetic flux Φ is permeated through the
magnetic pole to the pole tip when current is applied to its
actuating coil. As the magnetic flux diverges strongly in the air
from the sharp end of the pole, the spatial distribution of the
magnetic field in the workspace of the tweezers is very similar
to that of a point source’s field. A point magnetic charge [30]
associated with the magnetic flux can therefore be defined in
analogy to the electric charge as
Φ
q= (1)
µ0
where µ0 is the magnetic permeability of vacuum. The determi-
nation of the magnetic flux Φ will be discussed in Section III-C,
in which a relationship between the four input currents of the
tweezers and the four magnetic charges is established through
magnetic circuit analysis.
The magnetic field produced by the magnetic charge in the
workspace can therefore be written as
q
B = km 2 u (2)
r
where km = µ0 /4π = 1.0 × 10−7 N/A2 , r is the vector origi-
nated from the location of the magnetic charge to the magnetic
particle, r = r, and u = r/r is the unit directional vector of
r.
The magnetic field produced by the magnetic tweezers is thus
the superposition of the four magnetic fields


4
qj
B= km uj . (3)
rj2
j =1
In order to calculate the magnetic field using (3), two pa-
rameters need to be quantitatively determined. The first is the
lumped reluctance from the pole tip to the workspace center
in the air. The lumped reluctance, which will be discussed in
Section III-C, is employed to determine the magnetic flux
through each magnetic pole so as to calculate the magnitude
of the magnetic charge using (1). The second parameter is the
magnetic charge’s spatial position, which is characterized by a
shifting distance from the pole tip along the axis of symmetry
of the magnetic pole.
One approach that can be employed to evaluate the lumped
reluctance and the shifting distance is to compare the magnetic
field of the tweezers calculated using (3) with that analyzed
using the finite-element software ANSYS. A computer-aided
design model similar to the one shown in Fig. 3(a) is built in the
software. Magnetic and electric properties of the tweezers are
assigned to each component, and the direction and magnitude of
the currents are assigned to the coils. By fitting the results from
(3) to those of ANSYS, the shifting distance is determined to be
85 µm and the reluctance 1.8 × 109 A/Wb. With the reluctance
determined, the four magnetic charges can be evaluated for
any input currents using (9) in Section III-C. Since the shifting
ZHANG et al.: DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND FORCE MODELING OF QUADRUPOLE MAGNETIC TWEEZERS 707

Fig. 4. Comparison between magnitudes of the magnetic fields analyzed using ANSYS and calculated using the analytical model. The applied magnetomotive
forces, in the order of left, top, right, and bottom, are: (a) 9, −6, 9, and −6 At (ampere-turns). (b) 9, 0, 3, and 0 At. (c) 8, −5, 4, −7 At. The blue dashed lines are
the contours of the magnetic field solved by ANSYS, and the red solid lines are calculated from the analytical model. The numbers on the contour lines indicate
the magnetic field in the unit of gauss.

distance is 85 µm, the effective distance from the magnetic where µ is the permeability and V is the volume of the parti-
charge to the workspace center is  = 490 µm. cle. The analysis beyond the linear magnetization of the particle
Comparison between the magnitudes of magnetic fields ana- can be found in [32]. Furthermore, the dimension of the mag-
lyzed using the ANSYS and those calculated using the analytical netic particle should be much smaller than the dimension of the
model are illustrated in Fig. 4 for three cases. The origin of the workspace so that the presence of the particle in the workspace
coordinate system used in Fig. 4 is defined at the center of the does not affect the generation of the magnetic field. As the dis-
workspace, and both axes are normalized by . The four mag- tance from the center of the workspace to the pole tip point is
netic charges are therefore located at [1, 0], [0, 1], [−1, 0], and 405 µm for the specific tweezers, the effect of microscopic mag-
[0, −1] in this coordinate frame. The blue dashed lines in Fig. 4 netic beads of several micrometers in diameter can be ignored
are the contours of the magnetic field solved by ANSYS, and when the magnetic field is analyzed.
the red solid lines are those calculated from (3). From these The magnetic force on the magnetic bead is
plots, it can be seen that the magnetic field calculated using    
1 3V µ − µ0
the analytical model agrees very well with that solved using F=∇ m·B = ∇(B · B) = kQ FQ
ANSYS within the circular region whose radius is 0.7 in the 2 2µ0 µ + 2µ0
 (5)
defined coordinate system.
where kQ = 3V km 2
(µ − µ0 ) [2µ0 5 (µ + 2µ0 )] is the coeffi-
The out-of-plane magnetic field calculated using the analyti-
cient related to the properties of the magnetic particle and the
cal model also agrees very well with the ANSYS result. It can
magnetic tweezers, and FQ = 5 ∇(B · B)/km 2
.
be verified that the magnetic particle has a stable equilibrium
Substituting (3) to FQ , FQ can be organized into a quadratic
along the direction perpendicular to the working plane. When
form
the particle deviates from the working plane, the attractive mag-  
netic forces produced by the poles will pull it back. Therefore 5
4

4
uj · uk
in this paper, we focus our analysis to in-plane magnetic field FQ = 2 ∇(B · B) = qj qk ∇ 2 r̂ 2 = QT LQ
km j =1
r̂j k
and force. k =1
(6)
B. Magnetic Force Analysis where L is a 4 × 4 matrix,  each item of which is a vec-
tor L(j, k) = ∇[(uj · uk ) (r̂j2 r̂k2 )], Q = [ q1 q2 q3 q4 ]T
Microscopic superparamagnetic particles are used as mag-
is the vector of magnetic charges, and r̂ = r/ is the normal-
netic probes. They have a relative magnetic permeability
ized distance. Equation (6) indicates that the magnetic force is
µR  1 and do not exhibit hysteresis. When a magnetic particle
nonlinear with respect to the magnetic charge vector Q and is
is placed inside a magnetic field, it will be magnetized, and in
position dependent, as suggested by matrix L.
turn alter its surrounding magnetic field. The magnetic force
The gradient operation in determining L requires in-
experienced by the magnetic particle is then determined by the
tensive calculation and is not desirable for online imple-
particle’s magnetization and the altered field. To calculate the
mentation of the force model. In fact, using the relations
magnetic force using the original magnetic field, the effective
∇(rj · rk ) = rj + rk and ∇rk = uk , the calculation can be
magnetization of the particle should be used. For a spherical par-
simplified to
ticle, its effective magnetization is proportional to the external
    
magnetic field [31] until the magnetization saturates, 1 3(r̂j · r̂k ) 3(r̂j · r̂k )
  L(j, k) = 3 3 1− r̂k + 1− r̂j .
3V µ − µ0 r̂j r̂k r̂k2 r̂j2
m= B (4)
µ0 µ + 2µ0 (7)
708 IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 15, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2010

TABLE I
ESTIMATED MAGNETIC RELUCTANCES

simplified,
    
Φ1 3/4a −1/4a −1/4a −1/4a F1
 Φ2   −1/4a 3/4a −1/4a −1/4a  
    F2 
 =  
 Φ3   −1/4a −1/4a 3/4a −1/4a  F3 
Fig. 5. Magnetic circuit of the quadrupole magnetic tweezers. Φ4 −1/4a −1/4a −1/4a 3/4a F4
  
3/4 −1/4 −1/4 −1/4 I1
C. Magnetic Circuit Analysis Nc   
 −1/4 3/4 −1/4 −1/4 I2  Nc
= ·  = KI I
The relation between Q and F has been determined in the a  −1/4 −1/4 3/4 −1/4 I3  a
previous section. This section presents the relationship between −1/4 −1/4 −1/4 3/4 I4
the applied currents I and magnetic charge Q in order to establish
(9)
the complete force model.
The magnetic circuit for the quadrupole magnetic tweezers is where the matrix KI is the distribution matrix of the magnetic
shown in Fig. 5. In this figure, F = Nc I is the magnetomotive flux.
force generated by a coil with Nc turns and current I. p and y According to the definition of magnetic charges in (1), the
are the lumped reluctances of a magnetic pole and a quarter of the relation between Q and I can be established as
yoke, respectively. a is the lumped reluctance from the pole tip Nc
to the workspace center in the air. The magnetic reluctance of an Q= KI I. (10)
µ0 a
object is proportional to its length R and inversely proportional
to its magnetic permeability µ = µ0 µR and cross-sectional area Substituting (10) into (5), the complete magnetic force model
AR , as described in is
 2  2
Nc T T Nc
R F = kQ I KILKI I = kQ IT NI = kI IT NI
= . (8) µ0 a µ0 a
µ0 µR AR (11)
where kI = kQ [Nc /(µ0 a )]2 is the lumped coefficient re-
In this circuit, a is significantly larger than p and y as lated to the particle and magnetic circuit properties, and N =
the yoke and poles are made of materials much more magnetic KTI LKI .
permeable than air. The estimated reluctances are shown in As magnetic poles saturate when excessive current is applied,
Table I. The lengths and the cross-sectional areas of yoke and the input current is therefore limited to Im ax , which is the max-
poles are estimated from their dimensions, whereas the cross- imum current. Normalizing the current vector by dividing I by
sectional area associated with a is hard to estimate as the Im ax , the force model can be rewritten as
magnetic flux tends to spread in the air. Therefore, a is esti- F = kI IT NI = kI Im
2 T
ax Î NÎ = kIˆF̂ (12)
mated by fitting the ANSYS result with the analytical model, as
described in Section III-A. Based on the estimated value of a , where Î = I/Im ax
the lumped cross-sectional area of a is calculated and given in
F̂ = ÎT NÎ (13)
Table I.
Hopkinson’s law, which is the magnetic counterpart to the and
electrical Ohm’s law, states that the magnetomotive force is   2
2 3V km2
µ − µ0 Nc 2
equal to the product of the magnetic flux and the reluctance of kIˆ = kI Im ax = Im ax . (14)
the circuit. The magnetic flux through each pole can therefore 2µ0 5 µ + 2µ0 µ0 a
be determined according to the magnetic circuit. By neglecting With normalization of the input current, the normalized force
p and y , the determination of the magnetic flux can be further F̂ becomes dimensionless, and kIˆ is the lumped force gain that
ZHANG et al.: DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND FORCE MODELING OF QUADRUPOLE MAGNETIC TWEEZERS
has the unit of Newton and is related to the particle properties,
magnetic circuit properties, and the maximum input current.
The 4 × 4 matrix KI is rank deficient, and its rank is three.
This is due to the constraint that the net magnetic flux is always
zero, as determined by the Gauss’s law for magnetism. Accord-
ing to the definition of magnetic charges, the summation of the
magnetic charges is thus equal to zero,
q1 + q2 + q3 + q4 = 0. (15)
In other words, no excessive magnetic charge exists in the
system. This singularity of KI indicates that there are multiple
solutions associated with the same Q. If a similar constraint,
I1 + I2 + I3 + I4 = 0 (16)
is applied to the input currents, a one-to-one relationship be-
tween Q and I can be established. The force model can then be
simplified. In particular, at the center of the workspace the force
model is greatly abridged due to the symmetry of the setup
 as well as the diagonal directions, eight locations are selected
F̂x (0, 0) = 6(Iˆ12 − Iˆ32 )
. (17)
F̂y (0, 0) = 6(Iˆ22 − Iˆ42 )
Therefore, the range of the magnetic force at the center of the
ˆ ≤ 1.
workspace is [ −6kIˆ 6kIˆ ] in each direction since |I|
D. Applicability of the Force Model
The approach of force modeling presented earlier can be
applied to model other multipolar magnetic tweezers as long
as they satisfy two design requirements. First, the magnetic
tweezers use electromagnets and tip-shaped poles to produce
magnetic field. Second, a yoke is employed in the design to
form a closed magnetic circuit so that the magnetic flux coming
out of one pole will be gathered by other poles. In fact, many
multipolar magnetic tweezers satisfy these two requirements.
Closed magnetic circuits facilitate efficient generation of the
magnetic field and sharp tips lead to greater field gradient, so that
larger magnetic force can be produced. The effects of saturation
and hysteresis of magnetic materials are not included in the force
model. They degrade the performance of the magnetic tweezers
and thus should be avoided as much as possible in the process
of design and implementation. Materials with low hysteresis
loss are preferred for the fabrication of the yoke and poles. The
input current applied to the coils is limited to a predetermined
maximum value to prevent magnetic saturation.
IV. MAGNETIC FORCE DIRECTIONALITY ANALYSIS
The developed force model establishes the relationship be-
tween the magnetic force exerting on the magnetic particle and
the applied currents to the actuating coils. Since the resulting
2-D magnetic force, both the magnitude and direction, is posi-
tion dependent in the workspace, it is important to analyze the
force field of the tweezers so as to enable controllable force
application using the magnetic tweezers. This analysis also lays
the foundation for the implementation of feedback control that
enables stable motion control and advanced manipulation of the
magnetic probe. The developed force model is very effective
709
for the aforementioned purposes as it is a lumped-parameter
analytical model with a normalized formula. In this section,
the normalized force model F̂ = ÎT NÎ, as in (13), is employed
to characterize the force generation capability of the magnetic
tweezers. Since the quadrupole apparatus was designed to gen-
erate the magnetic force in arbitrary 2-D direction, numerical
simulations based on N were performed to calculate the result-
ing forces due to arbitrary current combinations. The calculated
forces are recorded on a 2-D force plane. As they fill up a
closed region, a force envelope is formed. The envelope of the
closed region is then used to characterize the force generation
capability of the designed quadrupole magnetic tweezers.
Fig. 6 shows the force envelope at different locations in the
workspace of the tweezer. Force vectors are added in the plot
to illustrate the maximal forces achievable in each direction. It
is not surprising that the envelope varies significantly according
to the location of the magnetic particle since N is position
dependent. As the setup is symmetric about both x- and y-axes,
in the first octant of the coordinate system, as illustrated in
the central plot of Fig. 6, to illustrate the anticipated position
dependence. At the center point [0, 0], the envelope is a square,
and the zero force point, which is marked as the red circle,
resides at the center of the square. When the location deviates
from the center, the force envelope deforms and appears to be
stretched toward the closest magnetic pole. It is worth noting that
the zero force point is always inside the envelope, showing that
forces in any direction can always be generated at any location.
However, the maximal force magnitudes differ significantly in
different directions.
To characterize the anisotropy of force generation, a measure
Γ is defined as the ratio between the smallest magnitude and
the largest magnitude on the force envelope. It is evident that
Γ has the largest value, 0.7, at the center point and decreases
while approaching each of the four poles. Fig. 7 shows the
contour of Γ. It can be seen that Γ decreases rapidly when
the magnetic particle moves from the center toward a magnetic
pole. When Γ is too small, it may not be practically possible
to generate the desired force in the weakest force direction due
to various uncertainties of the system, such as assembly errors
of the tweezers and fluctuations of the commanded currents. It
is therefore important to limit the workspace to be within the
region where Γ > 0.1 for effective manipulation.
V. EXPERIMENTAL VALIDATION OF THE FORCE MODEL
It is very difficult to directly measure the force exerted on
the magnetic particle due to at least two reasons. First, the
workspace is very small (∼1–100 µm) and the force range is
very small (∼1–100 pN). Second, without being mechanically
anchored or actively controlled, motion stability of the magnetic
probe is impossible. A feedback control law is developed ac-
cording to the presented force model to achieve motion stability
of a magnetic probe using the quadrupole magnetic setup. The
whole setup is assembled on an inverted microscope (Nikon
TE2000-U) with a 60× dry objective lens (CFI Super Plan
Fluor ELWD 60×C). The 2-D motion of the magnetic particle
710
Fig. 6. Force envelopes at different locations.
Fig. 7. Force generation anisotropy of the quadrupole magnetic tweezers.
is acquired by a computer vision system employing a high-
speed CMOS camera (Mikrotron MC1310), and subnanometer
measurement resolution is achieved [33]. The experiments are
performed at a sampling rate of 200 frames per second. During
the control process, the position of the magnetic bead is tracked
by the visual measurement system, and the digital controller ad-
justs the magnetic force applied to the magnetic bead by varying
IEEE/ASME TRANSACTIONS ON MECHATRONICS, VOL. 15, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2010
the currents in the coils so that the bead can stay at its desired
position. The design of the feedback control law is, however,
beyond the scope of this paper. Its detail can be found in [34].
The control results, nonetheless, can be used to indirectly verify
the accuracy of the presented force model.
The particle is a 2.8 µm diameter magnetic bead (Dynal)
and is controlled to raster scan a grid of positions in water, as
shown in Fig. 8(a). The grid is 12 × 12 in size, and each step is
12 µm. In this experiment, the probe moves from top to bottom
and stays at each location for 3 s. After it reaches the low-
est location along each vertical line, the probe is controlled to
move back to the highest location on the next vertical line. The
transient response of the probe’s motion vanishes within 0.5 s.
Fig. 8(a) is plotted by drawing the position data of the probe for
the last 2.5 s at each location. The probe’s motion versus time
is plotted in Fig. 8(b).
The magnetic probe always undergoes Brownian motion
when immersed in water. Its motion can be described by the
Langevin equation [35]. The motion equation in x-direction is
mẍ(t) + γ ẋ(t) = FT (t) + Fx (t) (18)
where m is the mass of the magnetic bead, γ is the damping co-
efficient of the bead in water, FT (t) is the random thermal force,
also called Langevin force, and Fx (t) is the applied magnetic
force in x-direction. In this equation, the inertia force mẍ(t)
is negligible when compared with the drag force γ ẋ(t) for the
ZHANG et al.: DESIGN, IMPLEMENTATION, AND FORCE MODELING OF QUADRUPOLE MAGNETIC TWEEZERS
Fig. 8. (a) Grid trajectory. (The data points are intentionally drawn with large
markers for display purposes. The real Brownian motion is restricted within
±150 nm.) (b) Probe’s motion versus time.
microscopic particle, and the mean value of the thermal force is
equal to zero.
With active feedback control, the probe’s Brownian motion
is restricted around the set point. As presented earlier, the probe
is controlled to stay at each location for 3 s. After the transient
response vanished, the mean value of the damping force goes
to zero. According to (18), the mean value of the applied mag-
netic force also equals zero. The steady-state currents applied
to the four coils during this experiment are drawn in Fig. 9. It
can be seen from this figure that when the magnetic particle
is stabilized, the currents commanded by the feedback control
system vary according to the set points. They should, however,
always generate zero net force. Substituting the applied cur-
rents and the corresponding position of the magnetic probe to
the force model, the calculated forces in x- and y-directions are
plotted in Fig. 10. As shown in this figure, the average forces in
both directions are very close to zero, which agrees well with
our analysis. This result, therefore, partially verifies the accu-
racy of the presented force model. It is also noted that large
fluctuation exhibits in the applied currents and the calculated
magnetic forces. This fluctuation is due to the controller’s ac-
tion to compensate the effect the thermal forces on the motion of
the probe.
With the establishment of a stable feedback control, the force
gain kIˆ of the tweezers can be calibrated using the input–output
relationship of the control loop. It can be shown that kIˆ is
proportional to the loop gain of the feedback system. When
711
Fig. 9. Steady-state currents applied to the four coils.
Fig. 10. Calculated steady-state magnetic forces using the presented force
model according to the applied currents shown in Fig. 9 and the probe’s location
as in Fig. 8(b).
the control set point is kept constant, the thermal force FT (t)
can be considered as the input, and the probe’s motion as the
output. The thermal force is known as a white noise with a flat
power spectrum density (PSD). Therefore, according to the PSD
of the controlled Brownian motion of the probe, the loop gain
and thus kIˆ can be calibrated. Its value is estimated to be 0.34
pN. The theoretical value of kIˆ can be calculated using (14).
As the magnetic probe is much more magnetic permeable than
air, (µ − µ0 )/(µ + 2µ0 ) can be approximated to 1, and a has
been determined according to the finite-element analysis. Im ax is
0.9 A. Substituting all the parameters into (14), the theoretical
value of kIˆ is determined to be 0.35 pN, only 3% different from
the calibrated result. It is worth noting that kIˆ is proportional to
the size of the bead according to (14).
Due to the limitation of the camera’s field of view, the ex-
periment is performed within the 132 × 132 µm2 area, which
corresponds to [−0.14, 0.14] in both axes in the normalized co-
ordinate system. In this region, Γ is larger than 0.1, and it is easy
to establish a stable control. When the probe moves further from
the center point, it becomes more and more difficult to realize
712
a stable control. Therefore, Γ can also be used as a measure of
controllability.
VI. CONCLUSION
The design, implementation, and magnetic force modeling
of quadrupole magnetic tweezers have been presented in this
paper. A lumped-parameter model based on magnetic monopole
approximation was developed to describe the magnetic field in
the workspace of the magnetic tweezers. An analytical force
model that establishes the relationship between the four input
currents and the magnetic force exerting on the magnetic particle
was then derived. The derived force model has a quadratic form
that has the four input currents as its variables and that depicts
the nonlinearity of the magnetic force with respect to the applied
currents. The position dependency of the magnetic force in the
workspace is characterized by the 4 × 4 matrix of the quadratic
form. Based on this 4 × 4 matrix, a force envelope on the
2-D force plane can be created and used to characterize the
force generation capability of the designed quadrupole magnetic
tweezers. Finally, the accuracy of the derived force model was
verified using experimental results in terms of magnetic force
in relation to stable motion control of a magnetic particle.
The approach presented in this paper can be applied to model
other multipolar magnetic tweezers as long as they satisfy two
design requirements. First, the magnetic tweezers use electro-
magnets and tip-shaped poles. Second, a closed magnetic circuit
is formed. Closed magnetic circuits facilitate efficient genera-
tion of the magnetic field and sharp tips lead to greater field
gradient, so that larger magnetic force can be produced. There-
fore, many multipolar magnetic tweezers would meet these two
requirements. The effects of saturation and hysteresis of mag-
netic materials are not included in the force model. They should
be avoided as much as possible in the process of design and
implementation.
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Zhipeng Zhang (S’08) received the B.S. degree
from the Department of Precision Instruments and
Mechanology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China,
in 2003, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from The
Ohio State University, Columbus, in 2005 and 2009,
respectively, both in mechanical engineering.
He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio
State University. His research interests include de-
sign, control, and instrumentation of electromechan-
ical systems; optical metrology and computer vision;
and biological manipulation and cell mechanics.
Dr. Zhang is a Student Member of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers.
713
Kui Huang received the B.S. and M.S. degrees from
Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, in 1999 and
2008, respectively, both in precision instruments and
mechanology. He is currently working toward the
M.S. degree in mechanical engineering at The Ohio
State University, Columbus.
His current research interests include design and
implementation of electromechanical systems, finite-
element method analysis, and microprocessor-based
control system.
Chia-Hsiang Menq (M’03–SM’08) received the
B.S. degree from National Tsing Hua University,
Hsinchu, Taiwan, in 1978, and the M.S. and Ph.D. de-
grees from Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh,
PA, in 1982 and 1985, respectively, all in mechanical
engineering.
Since 1985, he has been with The Ohio State
University, Columbus, where he is currently a Pro-
fessor and the Ralph W. Kurtz Chair in Mechanical
Engineering. His research interests include control,
sensing, and instrumentation; metrology, precision
engineering, and manufacturing; imaging and manipulation of living cells; and
visual sensing and visual servo control.
Prof. Menq is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.