Related papers: Artificial Rheotaxis
Using simulation and theory we study the dynamics of a colloidal suspension in two dimensions subject to a time-delayed repulsive feedback that depends on the positions of the colloidal particles. The colloidal particles experience an…
The transport of self-propelled particles such as bacteria and phoretic swimmers through crowded heterogeneous environments is relevant to many natural and engineering processes, from biofilm formation and contamination processes to…
For natural microswimmers, the interplay of swimming activity and external flow can promote robust motion, e.g. propulsion against ("upstream rheotaxis") or perpendicular to the direction of flow. These effects are generally attributed to…
Phase separation in a low-density gas-like phase and a high-density liquid-like one is a common trait of biological and synthetic self-propelling particles' systems. The competition between motility and stochastic forces is assumed to fix…
Many living and artificial systems show a similar emergent behavior and collective motions on different scales, starting from swarms of bacteria to synthetic active particles, herds of mammals and crowds of people. What all these systems…
The diffusion of active microscopic organisms in complex environments plays an important role in a wide range of biological phenomena from cell colony growth to single organism transport. Here, we investigate theoretically and…
Recent experimental studies have demonstrated that cellular motion can be directed by topographical gradients, such as those resulting from spatial variations in the features of a micropatterned substrate. This phenomenon, known as…
Cilia and flagella in biological systems often show large scale cooperative behaviors such as the synchronization of their beats in "metachronal waves". These are beautiful examples of emergent dynamics in biology, and are essential for…
We study experimentally, numerically and analytically, the dynamics of a chiral active particle (cm-sized robots), pulled at a constant translational velocity. We show that the system can be mapped to a Brownian particle driven across a…
In living cells, molecular motors create activity that enhances the diffusion of particles throughout the cytoplasm, and not just ones attached to the motors. We demonstrate initial steps toward creating artificial cells that mimic this…
While the collective motion of active particles has been studied extensively, effective strategies to navigate particle swarms without external guidance remain elusive. We introduce a method to control the trajectories of two-dimensional…
Self-propulsion allows living systems to display unusual collective behavior. Unlike passive systems in thermal equilibrium, active matter systems are not constrained by conventional thermodynamic laws. A question arises however as to what…
Active particles (living or synthetic) often move through inhomogeneous environments, such as gradients in light, heat or nutrient concentration, that can lead to directed motion (or taxis). Recent research has explored inhomogeneity in the…
One characteristic feature of soft matter systems is their strong response to external stimuli. As a consequence they are comparatively easily driven out of their ground state and out of equilibrium, which leads to many of their fascinating…
Molecular motors are essential to the living, they generate additional fluctuations that boost transport and assist assembly. Self-propelled colloids, that consume energy to move, hold similar potential for the man-made assembly of…
Active colloids, also known as artificial microswimmers, are self-propelled micro and nanoparticles that convert uniform sources of fuel (e.g. chemical) or uniform external driving fields (e.g. magnetic or electric) into directed motion by…
Cooperative transport is a striking phenomenon where multiple agents join forces to transit a payload too heavy for the individual. While social animals such as ants are routinely observed to coordinate transport at scale, reproducing the…
Transport phenomena in complex and dynamic microscopic environments are fundamentally shaped by hydrodynamic interactions. In particular, microparticle transport in porous media is governed by the delicate interplay between…
Miniaturized, self-propelled locomotors use chemo-mechanical transduction mechanisms to convert fuel in the environment to autonomous motion. Recent experimental and theoretical studies demonstrate that these autonomous engines can…
Depinning transitions occur when a threshold force must be applied to drive an otherwise immobile system. For the depinning of colloidal particles from a corrugated landscape, we show how active noise due to self-propulsion impacts the…