Related papers: Controlling active self-assembly through broken pa…
Active processes in living systems generate nonequilibrium forces that deform embedded passive macromolecules. To understand how such dynamics influence polymer conformation, we study a flexible passive chain in an active nematic fluid.…
The fluid phase diagram of trimer particles composed of one central attractive bead and two repulsive beads was determined as a function of simple geometric parameters using flat-histogram Monte Carlo methods. A variety of self-assembled…
We investigate dynamics of deformable self-propelled particles with a repulsive interaction whose magnitude depends on the relative direction of elongation of a pair of particles. A collective motion of the particles appears in two…
Self-assembly is a key process in living systems - from the microscopic biological level (e.g. assembly of proteins into fibrils within biomolecular condensates in a human cell) through to the macroscopic societal level (e.g. assembly of…
The design of amorphous entangled systems, specifically from soft and active materials, has the potential to open exciting new classes of active, shape-shifting, and task-capable 'smart' materials. However, the global emergent mechanics…
The cell cortex, a thin film of active material assembled below the cell membrane, plays a key role in cellular symmetry breaking processes such as cell polarity establishment and cell division. Here, we present a minimal model of the…
We propose a general framework for solving inverse self-assembly problems, i.e. designing interactions between elementary units such that they assemble spontaneously into a predetermined structure. Our approach uses patchy particles as…
The self-assembly of particles into organized structures is a key feature of living organisms and a major engineering challenge. While it may proceed through the binding of perfectly matched, puzzle-pieces-like particles, many other…
Soft materials, such as colloidal suspensions, polymer solutions, and biological systems, are typically multicomponent mixtures of macromolecules and simpler components (e.g., microions, monomers, solvent) that can assemble into complex…
Self-propelled colloidal objects, such as motile bacteria or synthetic microswimmers, have microscopically irreversible individual dynamics - a feature they share with all living systems. The incoherent behaviour of individual swimmers can…
Active systems, from bacterial suspensions to cellular monolayers, are continuously driven out of equilibrium by local injection of energy from their constituent elements and exhibit turbulent-like and chaotic patterns. Here we demonstrate…
Self-assembly of matter in solution generally relies on attractive interactions that overcome entropy and drive the formation of higher-order molecular and particulate structures. Such interactions play key roles in a variety of contexts,…
Study on a rectified current induced by active particles has received a great attention due to its possible application to a microscopic motor in biological environments. Insertion of an {\em asymmetric} passive object amid many active…
The dynamics of an active walker in a harmonic potential is studied experimentally, numerically and theoretically. At odds with usual models of self-propelled particles, we identify two dynamical states for which the particle condensates at…
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.…
Multi-step pathways, constituted of a sequence of reconfigurations, are central to a wide variety of natural and man-made systems. Such pathways autonomously execute in self-guided processes such as protein folding and self-assembly, but…
Active processes drive and guide biological dynamics across scales -- from subcellular cytoskeletal remodelling, through tissue development in embryogenesis, to population-level bacterial colonies expansion. In each of these, biological…
Topological and geometrical properties and the associated topological defects find a rapidly growing interest in studying the interplay between mechanics and the collective behavior of cells on the tissue level. We here test if well studied…
With the aim of understanding the emergence of collective motion from local interactions of organisms in a "noisy" environment, we study biologically inspired, inherently non-equilibrium models consisting of self-propelled particles. In…
Recent 3D organ reconstitution studies show that a group of stem cells can establish a body axis and acquire different fates in a spatially organized manner. How such symmetry breaking happens in the absence of external spatial cues, and…