Related papers: Cargo Towing by Artificial Swimmers
Mixtures of active and passive particles are ubiquitous at the microscale. Many essential microbial processes involve interactions with dead or immotile cells or passive crowders. When passive objects are immersed in active baths, their…
Active colloids and liquid crystals are capable of locally converting the macroscopically-supplied energy into directional motion and promise a host of new applications, ranging from drug delivery to cargo transport at the mesoscale. Here…
The energy dissipation and entropy production by self-propelled microswimmers differ profoundly from passive particles pulled by external forces. The difference extends both to the shape of the flow around the swimmer, as well as to the…
We present a detailed numerical study of a microscopic artificial swimmer realized recently by Dreyfus et al. in experiments [R. Dreyfus et al., Nature 437, 862 (2005)]. It consists of an elastic filament composed of superparamagnetic…
Manipulating micro-scale object plays paramount roles in a wide range of fundamental researches and applications. At micro-scale, various methods have been developed in the past decades, including optical, electric, magnetic, aerodynamic…
The current study presents a systematic investigation of the locomotion performance of a swimmer with a wide range of parameter settings. Two-dimensional simulations with the immersed boundary method are employed for the fluid-structure…
Active processes in living systems generate nonequilibrium forces that deform embedded passive macromolecules. To understand how such dynamics influence polymer conformation, we study a flexible passive chain in an active nematic fluid.…
We apply optimal control theory to a model of a polar active fluid (the Toner-Tu model), with the objective of driving the system into particular emergent dynamical behaviors or programming switching between states on demand. We use the…
Multivalent cargo that can interact with substrates via multiple interaction sites exhibit shared characteristics despite being found in different systems at different length-scales. Here, a general analytical model has been developed that…
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…
Active droplets are artificial microswimmers built from a liquid dispersion by microfluidic tools and showing self-propelled motion. These systems hold particular interest for mimicking biological phenomena, such as some aspects of cell…
In the present paper the behavior of a single artificial microswimmer is addressed, namely an active droplet moving by Marangoni flow. The non-uniform surface tension distribution underlying the propulsion mechanism of the droplet, is…
Active fluids can develop spontaneous flow instabilities and complex patterns. However, spatio-temporal control of active particles has remained challenging, despite its relevance in biological and applied contexts. Here, we harnessed…
Confining a liquid crystal imposes topological constraints on the orientational order, allowing global control of equilibrium systems by manipulation of anchoring boundary conditions. In this article, we investigate whether a similar…
Spreading processes on top of active dynamics provide a novel theoretical framework for capturing emerging collective behavior in living systems. I consider run-and-tumble dynamics coupled with coagulation/decoagulation reactions that lead…
We analyze the dynamics of a microswimmer in pressure-driven Poiseuille flow, where fluid inertia is small but non-negligible. Using perturbation theory and the reciprocal theorem, we show that in addition to the classical inertial lift of…
In this work we address the "smoking ring" propulsion technique, originally proposed by E. M. Purcell. We first consider self-locomotion of a doughnut-shaped swimmer powered by surface tank-treading. Different modes of surface motion are…
Artificial gliders are designed to disperse as they settle through a fluid, requiring precise navigation to reach target locations. We show that a compact glider settling in a viscous fluid can navigate by dynamically adjusting its…
We formulate and solve the equations governing the dynamics of a microscopic artificial swimmer composed of a head and of a tail made of a thin film of permanent magnetic material. This is a variant of the model swimmer proposed by Dreyfus…
Following a recent demonstration of stable trapping of floating particles by stationary (monochromatic) structured water waves [Nature 638, 394 (2025)], we report dynamic water-wave tweezers that enable controllable transport of trapped…