Related papers: Colloidal Micromotors: Controlled Directed Motion
A major challenge in the study of active systems is to harness their non-equilibrium dynamics into useful work. We address this by showing how to design colloids with controllable spontaneous propulsion or rotation when immersed in active…
We create controllable active particles in the form of metal-dielectric Janus colloids which acquire motility through a nematic liquid crystal film by transducing the energy of an imposed perpendicular AC electric field. We achieve complete…
Biological machines harness targeted deformations that can be actuated by Brownian fluctuations. However, while synthetic micromachines can similarly leverage targeted deformations they are too stiff to be driven by thermal fluctuations and…
Isolated microscopic magnetic particles are used to induce local perturbations in dense colloidal suspensions by rotating an external magnet. Confocal microscopy enables tracking of both the magnetic probe particle and adjacent colloidal…
While electrons moving perpendicular to a magnetic field are confined to cyclotron orbits, they can move freely parallel to the field. This simple fact leads to complex current flow in clean, low carrier density semi-metals, such as…
Collective motion in actively propelled particle systems is triggered on the very local scale by nucleation of coherently moving units consisting of just a handful of particles. These units grow and merge over time, ending up in a…
Periodically-modulated potentials in the form of light fields have previously been applied to induce reversible phase transitions in dilute colloidal systems with long-range interactions. Here we investigate whether similar transitions can…
We study a model of synthetic molecular motor - a [3]-catenane consisting of two small macrocycles mechanically interlocked with a bigger one - subjected to a time-dependent driving using stochastic thermodynamics. The model presents…
We propose a two-dimensional model for the organization of stabilized microtubules driven by molecular motors in an unconfined geometry. In this model two kinds of dynamics are competing. The first one is purely diffusive, with an…
Manipulating the way in which colloidal particles self-organise is a central challenge in the design of functional soft materials. Meeting this challenge requires the use of building blocks that interact with one another in a highly…
Physics governing the locomotion of microorganisms and other microsystems is dominated by viscous damping. An effective swimming strategy involves the non-reciprocal and periodic deformations of the considered body. Here, we show that a…
We consider disordered solids in which the microscopic elements can deform plastically in response to stresses on them. We show that by driving the system periodically, this plasticity can be exploited to train in desired elastic…
Molecular motors power directed transport of cargoes within cells. Even if a single motor is sufficient to transport a cargo, motors often cooperate in small teams. We discuss the cooperative cargo transport by several motors theoretically…
Engineered quantum systems allow us to observe phenomena that are not easily accessible naturally. The LEGO-like nature of superconducting circuits makes them particularly suited for building and coupling artificial atoms. Here, we…
Nanostructured dielectric metasurfaces offer unprecedented opportunities to manipulate light by imprinting an arbitrary phase-gradient on an impinging wavefront. This has resulted in the realization of a range of flat analogs to classical…
Recent advancements in active colloidal systems aim to mimic key characteristics of biological microswimmers, particularly their adaptive motility in response to environmental changes. While many approaches rely on externally imposing a…
The Hamiltonian dynamics of a single particle in a rotating plasma column, interacting with an magnetic multipole is perturbatively solved for up to second order, using the method of Lie transformations. First, the exact Hamiltonian is…
Colloids that interact via a short-range attraction serve as the primary building blocks for a broad range of self-assembled materials. However, one of the well-known drawbacks to this strategy is that these building blocks rapidly and…
Routinely navigating through an ever-changing and unsteady environment, and utilizing chemical energy, molecular motors transport the cell's crucial components, such as neurotransmitters and organelles. They generate force and pull cargo,…
In living cells, molecular motors convert chemical energy into mechanical work. Its thermodynamic energy efficiency, i.e. the ratio of output mechanical work to input chemical energy, is usually high. However, using two-state models, we…