Related papers: Autophoretic locomotion from geometric asymmetry
Catalytic swimmers have attracted much attention as alternatives to biological systems for examining collective microscopic dynamics and the response to physico-chemical signals. Yet, understanding and predicting even the most fundamental…
This review treats asymmetric colloidal particles moving through their host fluid under the action of some form of propulsion. The propulsion can come from an external body force or from external shear flow. It may also come from…
Self-chemophoresis is an appealing and quite successful interpretation of the motility exhibited by certain chemically active colloidal particles suspended in a solution of their "fuel": the particle has a phoretic response to…
The self-propelled motion of microscopic bodies immersed in a fluid medium is studied using molecular dynamics simulation. The advantage of the atomistic approach is that the detailed level of description allows complete freedom in…
We employ computer simulations to unveil the translational and rotational dynamics of the self-driven chemically symmetric and asymmetric rigid dumbbells in two-dimensional polymer gel. Our results show that activity or the self-propulsion…
In this Account, we describe how synthetic motors that operate by self-diffusiophoresis make use of a self-generated concentration gradient to drive motor motion. A description of propulsion by self-diffusiophoresis is presented for Janus…
Microscale transport often relies on ubiquitous yet intrinsically random thermal fluctuations. Understanding how such fluctuations can be biased into directed motion has long been a central theme of nonequilibrium physics. Here, we…
In this paper we study the locomotion of a shape-changing body swimming in a two-dimensional perfect fluid of infinite extent. The shape-changes are prescribed as functions of time satisfying constraints ensuring that they result from the…
Microorganisms are able to overcome the thermal randomness of their surroundings by harvesting energy to navigate in viscous fluid environments. In a similar manner, synthetic colloidal microswimmers are capable of mimicking complex…
Swimming cells often have to self-propel through fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheology. While past theoretical work seems to indicate that stresses arising from complex fluids should systematically hinder low-Reynolds number locomotion,…
The motion of an artificial micro-scale swimmer that uses a chemical reaction catalyzed on its own surface to achieve autonomous propulsion is fully characterized experimentally. It is shown that at short times, it has a substantial…
Phoretic colloids self-propel thanks to surface flows generated in response to surface gradients (thermal, electrical, or chemical), that are self-induced and/or generated by other particles. Here we present a scalable and versatile…
Recent findings of possible applications of bio-friendly synthetic self-phoretic swimmers, have motivated the researchers in investigating the various motion-generating mechanisms to optimize the operating characteristics of the same. In…
Over the past decade, autophoretic colloids have emerged as a prototypical system for studying self-propelled motion at microscopic scales, with promising applications in microfluidics, micromachinery, and therapeutics. Their motion in a…
Breaking spatial symmetry is an essential requirement for phoretic active particles to swim at low Reynolds number. This fundamental prerequisite for swimming at the micro-scale is fulfilled either by chemical patterning of the surface of…
We study the local controllability properties of 2D and 3D bio-mimetic swimmers employing the change of their geometric shape to propel themselves in an incompressible fluid described by Navier-Stokes equations. It is assumed that swimmers'…
We consider a 2D model of an autophoretic particle in which the particle has a circular shape and emits/absorbs a solute that diffuses and is advected by the suspending fluid. Beyond a certain emission/absorption rate (characterized by a…
Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…
Within a unified formulation, encompassing self-electrophoresis, self-diffusiophoresis, and self-thermophoresis, we provide a simple integral kernel transforming the relevant surface flux to particle velocity for any spheroid with…
In the study of microscopic flows, self-propulsion has been particularly topical in recent years, with the rise of miniature artificial swimmers as a new tool for flow control, low Reynolds number mixing, micromanipulation or even drug…