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Collective motion of self-propelled organisms or synthetic particles often termed active fluid has attracted enormous attention in broad scientific community because of it fundamentally non-equilibrium nature. Energy input and interactions…
Self-assembly is the autonomous organization of components into patterns or structures: an essential ingredient of biology and a desired route to complex organization. At equilibrium, the structure is encoded through specific interactions,…
Experiments have recently shown the feasibility of utilising bacteria as micro-scale robotic devices, with special attention paid to the development of bacteria-driven micro-swimmers taking advantage of built-in actuation and sensing…
Recent experiments proposed to use confined bacteria in order to generate flows near surfaces. We develop a mathematical and a computational model of this fluid transport using a linear superposition of fundamental flow singularities. The…
Active propulsion, as performed by bacteria and Janus particles, in combination with hydrodynamic interaction results in the accumulation of bacteria at a flat wall. However, in microfluidic devices with cylindrical pillars of sufficiently…
Bacteria are prolific at colonizing diverse surfaces under a widerange of environmental conditions, and exhibit fascinating examples of self-organization across scales. Though it has recently attracted considerable interest, the role of…
Active particles locally transduce energy into motion, leading to unusual and emergent behaviors. However, current synthetic particles lack sensing and adaptation mechanisms. Here, we demonstrate a novel regulation pathway, through the…
A fundamental design rule that nature has developed for biological machines is the intimate correlation between motion and function. One class of biological machines is molecular motors in living cells, which directly convert chemical…
A growing body of work aims at designing and testing micron-scale synthetic swimmers. One method, inspired by the locomotion of flagellated bacteria, consists of applying a rotating magnetic field to a rigid, helically-shaped, propeller…
Differently from passive Brownian particles, active particles, also known as self-propelled Brownian particles or microswimmers and nanoswimmers, are capable of taking up energy from their environment and converting it into directed motion.…
We study the dynamics and interaction of two swimming bacteria, modeled by self-propelled dumbbell-type structures. We focus on alignment dynamics of a coplanar pair of elongated swimmers, which propel themselves either by pushing" or…
Ciliated microswimmers and flagellated bacteria alter their swimming trajectories to follow the direction of an applied electric field exhibiting electrotaxis. Both for matters of application and physical modelling, it is instructive to…
We propose a rotary DNA nanomachine that shows a continuous rotation with a frequency of 10^2 -10^4 Hz. This motor consists of a DNA ring whose elastic features are tuned such that it can be externally driven via a periodic temperature…
Synchronization plays a crucial role in the dynamics of living organisms, from fireflies flashing in unison to pacemaker cells that jointly generate heartbeats. Uncovering the mechanism behind these phenomena requires an understanding of…
Self-propelled particles move along circles rather than along a straight line when their driving force does not coincide with their propagation direction. Examples include confined bacteria and spermatozoa, catalytically driven nanorods,…
We propose a simple model of self-propelled particles to show that coherent structures, such as jets and swirls, can arise from a plausible microscopic mechanisms: (i) the elongated shape of the self-propelled particles with (ii) the…
Microscopic swimmers, e.g., chemotactic bacteria and cells, are capable of directed motion by exerting a force on their environment. For asymmetric microswimmers, e.g., bacteria, spermatozoa and many artificial active colloidal particles, a…
Recent advances in microscopy techniques has uncovered unique aspects of flagella-driven motility in bacteria. A remarkable example is the discovery of flagellar wrapping, a phenomenon whereby a bacterium wraps its flagellum (or flagellar…
Active turbulence, or chaotic self-organized collective motion, is often observed in concentrated suspensions of motile bacteria and other systems of self-propelled interacting agents. To date, there is no fundamental understanding of how…
Motility is a basic feature of living microorganisms, and how it works is often determined by environmental cues. Recent efforts have focused on develop- ing artificial systems that can mimic microorganisms, and in particular their…