Related papers: Light-induced self-assembly of active rectificatio…
Self-propelling bacteria are a dream of nano-technology. These unicellular organisms are not just capable of living and reproducing, but they can swim very efficiently, sense the environment and look for food, all packaged in a body…
Phototaxis is a light driven self-locomotion of mass and a common phenomenon in motile organisms with varieties of motility such as in bacteria, algae, etc. In naturally occurring organisms, mechanical force is generated utilising their…
There are many examples of driven and active matter systems containing particles that exhibit circular motion with different chiralities, such as swimming bacteria near surfaces or certain types of self-driven colloidal particles. Circular…
The persistent motility of the individual constituents in microbial suspensions represents a prime example of so-called active matter systems. Cells consume energy, exert forces and move, overall releasing the constraints of equilibrium…
Active particles such as swimming bacteria or self-propelled colloids are known to spontaneously organize into fascinating large-scale dynamic structures. The emergence of these collective states from the motility pattern of the individual…
Active fluids refer to the fluids that contain self-propelled particles such as bacteria or micro-algae, whose properties differ fundamentally from the passive fluids. Such particles often exhibit an intermittent motion, with high-motility…
Active matter systems being in a non-equilibrium state, exhibit complex behaviors such as self-organization and giving rise to emergent phenomena. There are many examples of active particles with biological origins, including bacteria and…
Adding a non-adsorbing polymer to passive colloids induces an attraction between the particles via the `depletion' mechanism. High enough polymer concentrations lead to phase separation. We combine experiments, theory and simulations to…
Recent advances in the field of active soft matter promise a lot. Both, experimental advances and theoretical understanding point towards new material classes in reach, for example self-healing materials that might switch their properties…
Living systems are capable of locomotion, reconfiguration, and replication. To perform these tasks, cells spatiotemporally coordinate the interactions of force-generating, "active" molecules that create and manipulate non-equilibrium…
The fluctuations of a nonequilibrium bath enable dynamics inaccessible to any equilibrium system. Exploiting the driven dynamics of active matter in order to do useful work has become a topic of significant experimental and theoretical…
Living organisms are molecular systems with self-sustained dynamics via energy conversion through molecular cooperation, resulting in highly complex macroscopic behaviors. Construction of such autonomous macroscopic dynamics at a molecular…
Here, we report on a new class active particles capable of dynamically programmable motion powered by electricity. We have implemented physical principles that separate the propulsion and steering mechanisms of active motion using optically…
Photosynthetic microbes have evolved and successfully adapted to the ever-changing environmental conditions in complex microhabitats throughout almost all ecosystems on Earth. In the absence of light, they can sustain their biological…
The design of artificial microswimmers is often inspired by the strategies of natural microorganisms. Many of these creatures exploit the fact that elasticity breaks the time-reversal symmetry of motion at low Reynolds numbers, but this…
Collections of simple, self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit complex, emergent dynamical behavior, with promising applications in microrobotics. When confined within a deformable vesicle, self-propelled rods cluster and align,…
Cells and microorganisms employ dynamic shape changes to enable steering and avoidance for efficient spatial exploration and collective organization. In contrast, active colloids, their synthetic counterparts, currently lack similar…
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…
Robotic materials are multi-robot systems formulated to leverage the low-order computation and actuation of the constituents to manipulate the high-order behavior of the entire material. We study the behaviors of ensembles composed of smart…
Active matter comprised of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Streamlining active matter to produce work is especially important at…