Towards active microfluidics: Interface turbulence in thin liquid films with floating molecular machines
Pattern Formation and Solitons
2015-05-13 v1 Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems
Fluid Dynamics
Abstract
Thin liquid films with floating active protein machines are considered. Cyclic mechanical motions within the machines, representing microscopic swimmers, lead to molecular propulsion forces applied to the air-liquid interface. We show that, when the rate of energy supply to the machines exceeds a threshold, the flat interface becomes linearly unstable. As the result of this instability, the regime of interface turbulence, characterized by irregular traveling waves and propagating machine clusters, is established. Numerical investigations of this nonlinear regime are performed. Conditions for the experimental observation of the instability are discussed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0810.1595,
title = {Towards active microfluidics: Interface turbulence in thin liquid films with floating molecular machines},
author = {Sergio Alonso and Alexander S. Mikhailov},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0810.1595},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
9 pages, 8 figures, RevTeX, submitted to Physical Review E