Related papers: Autophoretic locomotion from geometric asymmetry
Mechanisms of locomotion in microscopic systems are of great interest not only for technological applications, but also for the sake of understanding, and potentially harnessing, processes far from thermal equilibrium. Down-scaling is a…
Locomotion by shape changes (spermatozoon swimming, snake slithering, bird flapping) or gas expulsion (rocket firing) is assumed to require environmental interaction, due to conservation of momentum. As first noted in (Wisdom, 2003) and…
The propulsion of mammalian spermatozoa relies on the spontaneous periodic oscillation of their flagella. These oscillations are driven internally by the coordinated action of ATP-powered dynein motors that exert sliding forces between…
Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…
A minimal design for a molecular swimmer is proposed that is a based on a mechanochemical propulsion mechanism. Conformational changes are induced by electrostatic actuation when specific parts of the molecule temporarily acquire net…
A simple model for the reaction-driven propulsion of a small device is proposed as a model for (part of) a molecular machine in aqueous media. Motion of the device is driven by an asymmetric distribution of reaction products. The propulsive…
Self-propelled phoretic colloids have recently emerged as a promising avenue for the design of artificial swimmers. These swimmers combine purely phoretic interactions with intricate hydrodynamics which critically depend on the swimmer…
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,…
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…
An artificial microswimmer drifts in response to spatio-temporal modulations of an activating suspension medium. We consider two competing mechanisms capable of influencing its tactic response: angular fluctuations, which help it explore…
Active drops emit/absorb chemical solutes, whose concentration gradients cause interfacial flows driving their own transport and the propulsion of the droplet. Such non-linear coupling enables active drops to achieve directed…
Phoretic mechanisms, whereby gradients of chemical solutes induce surface-driven flows, have recently been used to generate directed propulsion of patterned colloidal particles. When the chemical solutes diffuse slowly, an instability…
Self-propulsion plays a crucial role in biological processes and nanorobotics, enabling small systems to move autonomously in noisy environments. Here, we theoretically demonstrate that a bound skyrmion-skyrmion pair in a synthetic…
We study the effect of a nearby planar wall on the propulsion of a spherical phoretic micro-swimmer driven by reactions on its surface. An asymmetric coverage of catalysts on its surface which absorb reactants and generate products gives…
We show that unconstrained asymmetric dissolving solids floating in a fluid can move rectilinearly as a result of attached density currents which occur along their inclined surfaces. Solids in the form of boats composed of centimeter-scale…
We study, by means of an exact analytical solution, the motion of a spheroidal, axisymmetric squirmer in an unbounded fluid, as well as the low Reynolds number hydrodynamic flow associated to it. In contrast to the case of a spherical…
Waves in excitable media can be treated by a simple geometric theory. The propagation velocity is assumed known and evolution of wave fronts is determined by elementary physical principles (Fermat's principle, Huygens' principle). Based on…
We have proposed a method for the dynamic simulation of a collection of self-propelled particles in a viscous Newtonian fluid. We restrict attention to particles whose size and velocity are small enough that the fluid motion is in the…
Microscopic self-propelled swimmers capable of autonomous navigation through complex environments provide appealing opportunities for localization, pick-up and delivery of micro-and nanoscopic objects. Inspired by motile cells and bacteria,…
Many microorganisms swim in a highly heterogeneous environment with obstacles such as fibers or polymers. To better understand how this environment affects microorganism swimming, we study propulsion of a cylinder or filament in a fluid…