Efficiency of surface-driven motion: nano-swimmers beat micro-swimmers
Soft Condensed Matter
2015-05-20 v2 Statistical Mechanics
Fluid Dynamics
Abstract
Surface interactions provide a class of mechanisms which can be employed for propulsion of micro- and nanometer sized particles. We investigate the related efficiency of externally and self-propelled swimmers. A general scaling relation is derived showing that only swimmers whose size is comparable to, or smaller than, the interaction range can have appreciable efficiency. An upper bound for efficiency at maximum power is 1/2. Numerical calculations for the case of diffusiophoresis are found to be in good agreement with analytical expressions for the efficiency.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1010.4656,
title = {Efficiency of surface-driven motion: nano-swimmers beat micro-swimmers},
author = {Benedikt Sabass and Udo Seifert},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1010.4656},
year = {2015}
}