Winged microchip is smallest-ever human-made flying structure

Image: A 3D microflier sits next to a common ant to show scale. Image credit: Northwestern University. National Science Foundation – November 4, 2021.

Microfliers’ could monitor air pollution, airborne disease and environmental contamination

Engineers have added a new capability to electronic microchips: flight. About the size of a grain of sand, the new flying microchip, or “microflier,”  does not have a motor or engine. Instead, it catches flight on the wind — much like a maple tree’s propeller seed — and spins like a helicopter through the air toward the ground. […]

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