When a slimy smear of the bacteria is applied to a substrate, in this case a square
chip of photosensitive material
called SU - 8, you get a negatively
charged microrobot that can move around in a fluid by riding the waves of an electric field.
This
chip,
called Rhea, converts the electric
charge created by a passing proton into a digital signal with additional logic to provide accurate timing (to one hundredth of one millionth of a second) while preventing erroneous signals being recorded.