Related papers: Light-induced self-assembly of active rectificatio…
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…
Bacterial swimming is well characterized in uniform liquids at rest. The natural habitat of bacterial swimmers, however, is often dominated by moving fluids and interfaces, resulting in shear flows that may strongly alter bacterial…
Small - but finite - fluid inertia can be leveraged to generate steady flows out of liquid vibrations around an immersed interface. In engineering, external high-frequency drivers (10$^2$-10$^5$ Hz) allow this inertial rectification…
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…
We built and characterised a macroscopic self-assembly reactor that agitates magnetic, centimeter-sized particles with a turbulent water flow. By scaling up the self-assembly processes to the centimeter-scale, the characteristic time…
Active matter comprised of many self-driven units can exhibit emergent collective behaviors such as pattern formation and phase separation in both biologica and synthetic systems. While these behaviors are increasingly well understood for…
Active Brownian particles (ABPs, such as self-phoretic colloids) swim at fixed speed $v$ along a body-axis ${\bf u}$ that rotates by slow angular diffusion. Run-and-tumble particles (RTPs, such as motile bacteria) swim with constant $\u$…
We study both experimentally and theoretically the self-assembly of binary block copolymers in dilute solution, where self-assembly is triggered by changing the solvent from the common good solvent THF to the selective solvent water, and…
We outline a concept of self-assembled soft matter devices based on micro-fluidics, which use surfactant bilayer membranes as their main building blocks, arrested in geometric structures provided by top-down lithography. Membranes form…
We investigate the phase behavior and kinetics of a monodisperse mixture of active (\textit{i.e.}, self-propelled) and passive isometric Brownian particles through Brownian dynamics simulations and theory. As in a purely active system,…
Simple local interactions can cause primitive building blocks to self-assemble into complex and functional patterns. However, even for a small number of blocks, there exist a vast number of possible configurations that are plausible,…
Classical nonlinear random waves can exhibit a process of condensation. It originates in the singularity of the Rayleigh-Jeans equilibrium distribution and it is characterized by the macroscopic population of the fundamental mode of the…
In this work, we demonstrate that the nonlinear response of certain soft-matter systems can be tailored at will by appropriately engineering their optical polarizability. In particular, we deliberately synthesize stable colloidal…
Active hydrodynamic theories are a powerful tool to study the emergent ordered phases of internally driven particles such as bird flocks, bacterial suspension and their artificial analogues. While theories of orientationally ordered phases…
From intracellular protein trafficking to large scale motion of animal groups, the physical concepts driving the self-organization of living systems are still largely unraveled. Selforganization of active entities, leading to novel phases…
We present a liquid crystal method of correcting the phase of an aberrated wavefront using a spatial light modulator. A simple and efficient lab model has been demonstrated for wavefront correction. The crux of a wavefront correcting system…
We demonstrate that collective turbulent-like motion in a bacterial bath can power and steer directed transport of mesoscopic carriers through the suspension. In our experiments and simulations, a microwedge-like "bulldozer" draws energy…
Densely packed, motile bacteria can adopt collective states not seen in conventional, passive materials. These states remain in many ways mysterious, and their physical characterization can aid our understanding of natural bacterial…
In this paper we consider dynamics of a molecular system subjected to external pumping by a light source. Within a completely quantum mechanical treatment, we derive a general formula, which enables to asses effects of different light…
Hydrodynamical interactions of active micro-particles are pervasive in our planet's fluid environments. Hence, understanding the interactions of these self-propelled particles is essential for science and engineering. In this paper the…