Related papers: Living Liquid Crystals
Near-field hydrodynamic interactions between bacteria and no-slip solid surfaces are the main mechanism underlying surface entrapment of bacteria. In this study, we employ a chiral two-body model to simulate bacterial dynamics near the…
The acoustofluidic method holds great promise for manipulating microorganisms. When exposed to the steady vortex structures of acoustic streaming flow, these microorganisms exhibit intriguing dynamic behaviors, such as hydrodynamic trapping…
There is a recent interest in studying odd elasticity in soft solids. Current focus has been on simple solids. However, many soft solids are structured and can exhibit nematic elasticity or viscoelasticity. Here we generalize the concept of…
Chirality is a recurrent theme in the study of biological systems, in which active processes are driven by the internal conversion of chemical energy into work. Bacterial flagella, acto-myosin filaments and microtubule bundles are active…
Recent experiments on active materials, such as dense bacterial suspensions and microtubule-kinesin motor mixtures, show a promising potential for achieving self-sustained flows. However, to develop active microfluidics it is necessary to…
We study theoretically the hydrodynamics of a fluid drop containing oriented filaments endowed with active contractile or extensile stresses and placed on a solid surface. The active stresses alter qualitatively the wetting properties of…
Liquids flowing against solid surfaces experience friction. While solid friction is familiar to anyone with a sense of touch, liquid friction is much more exotic. At macroscopic scales indeed, the assumption of inifinite friction, i.e. that…
Anisotropic macromolecules exposed to non-equilibrium (active) noise are very common in biological systems, and an accurate understanding of their anisotropic dynamics is therefore crucial. Here, we experimentally investigate the dynamics…
Coexistence of order and fluidity in soft matter often mimics that in biology, allowing for complex dynamics and applications like displays. In active soft matter, emergent order can arise because of such dynamics. Powered by local energy…
We introduce a phenomenological theory for a new class of soft active fluids, with the ability to synchronise. Our theoretical framework describes the macroscopic behaviour of a collection of interacting anisotropic elements with cyclic…
Liquid crystal is a typical kind of soft matter that is intermediate between crystalline solids and isotropic fluids. The study of liquid crystals has made tremendous progress over the last four decades, which is of great importance on both…
We report here a molecular dynamics simulation study on water and aqueous LiCl solutions confined in 1.6 nm cylindrical pores of silica to investigate a dynamical cross-over, observed earlier experimentally, wherein LiCl slows down confined…
Active matter systems such as eukaryotic cells and bacteria continuously transform chemical energy to motion. Hence living systems exert active stresses on the complex environments in which they reside. One recurring aspect of this…
Confining a liquid crystal imposes topological constraints on the orientational order, allowing global control of equilibrium systems by manipulation of anchoring boundary conditions. In this article, we investigate whether a similar…
In equilibrium, disorder conspires with topological defects to redefine the ordered states of matter in systems as diverse as crystals, superconductors and liquid crystals. Far from equilibrium, however, the consequences of quenched…
Anisotropic fluids appear in a diverse array of systems, from liquid-crystal displays to bacterial swarms, and are characterized by orientational order. Large colloidal particles immersed in such environments disturb the medium's…
Topologically nontrivial field configurations called "baby skyrmions" behave like particles and give origins to the field of skyrmionics that promises racetrack memory and other technological applications. Unraveling the non-equilibrium…
Active fluids are intrinsically out-of-equilibrium systems due to the internal energy injection of the active constituents. We show here that a transition from a motion-less isotropic state towards a flowing polar one can be possibly driven…
The rapid adhesion of motile bacteria from dilute suspensions poses a fundamental non-equilibrium problem: hydrodynamic interactions bias bacterial motion near surfaces without generating stable confinement, while electrostatic interactions…
The past two decades have seen a remarkable progress in the development of synthetic colloidal agents which are capable of creating directed motion in an unbiased environment at the microscale. These self-propelling particles are often…