Related papers: Can Magnetic Multilayers Propel Artificial Microsw…
Micro-nano-robotic swimmers have promising potential for future biomedical tasks such as targeted drug delivery and minimally-invasive diagnosis. An efficient method for controlled actuation of such nano-swimmers is applying a rotating…
By numerical modeling we investigate fluid transport in low-Reynolds-number flow achieved with a special elastic filament or artifical cilium attached to a planar surface. The filament is made of superparamagnetic particles linked together…
Various microorganisms and some mammalian cells are able to swim in viscous fluids by performing nonreciprocal body deformations, such as rotating attached flagella or by distorting their entire body. In order to perform chemotaxis, i.e. to…
In this paper we study swimming of a model organism, the so-called Taylor's swimming sheet, in a viscoelastic fluid close to a solid boundary. This situation comprises natural habitats of many swimming microorganisms, and while previous…
Both natural and artificial small-scale swimmers may often self-propel in environments subject to complex geometrical constraints. While most past theoretical work on low-Reynolds number locomotion addressed idealised geometrical…
Micro-swimmers put into motion by a rotating magnetic field have provided interesting challenges both in engineering and in mathematical modelling. We study here the dynamics of a permanent-magnetic rigid body submitted to a…
Suspensions of unicellular microswimmers such as flagellated bacteria or motile algae exhibit spontaneous density heterogeneities at large enough concentrations. Based on the relative location of the biological actuation appendages i.e.…
We present an automated procedure for the design of optimal actuation for flagellar magnetic microswimmers based on numerical optimization. Using this method, a new magnetic actuation method is provided which allows these devices to swim…
In isotropic fluids like water, micrometer-scale swimmers have evolved swim strokes to translate despite their tiny size. As described by Purcell in his Scallop Theorem, reciprocal motions, like those performed by a scallop, cannot drive…
Many biological microswimmers locomote by periodically beating the densely-packed cilia on their cell surface in a wave-like fashion. While the swimming mechanisms of ciliated microswimmers have been extensively studied both from the…
In a fluid environment, flagellated microswimmers propel themselves by rotating their flagella. The morphology of these flagella significantly influences forward speed, swimming efficiency, and directional stability, which are critical for…
Through billions of years of evolution, microorganisms mastered unique swimming behaviors to thrive in complex fluid environments. Limitations in nanofabrication have thus far hindered the ability to design and program synthetic swimmers…
The demonstrations of micro-robotic systems in minimally invasive medicine include an individual or a swarm of microswimmer of various origin, artificial or biohybrid, often with an external computer-controlled electromagnetic field. There…
Swimming microorganisms often self propel in fluids with complex rheology. While past theoretical work indicates that fluid viscoelasticity should hinder their locomotion, recent experiments on waving swimmers suggest a possible…
Microscale propulsion is integral to numerous biomedical systems, for example biofilm formation and human reproduction, where the surrounding fluids comprise suspensions of polymers. These polymers endow the fluid with non-Newtonian…
We present an artificial swimmer consisting in a long cylinder of ferrogel which is polarized transversely and in opposite directions at each extremity. When it is placed on a water film and submitted to a transverse oscillating magnetic…
When tiny soft ferromagnetic particles are placed along a liquid interface and exposed to a vertical magnetic field, the balance between capillary attraction and magnetic repulsion leads to self-organization into well-defined patterns.…
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…
Magnetically driven artificial microswimmers have the potential to revolutionize many biomedical technologies, such as minimally-invasive microsurgery, micro-particle manipulation, and localized drug delivery. However, many of these…
Populations of swimming microorganisms produce fluid motions that lead to dramatically enhanced diffusion of tracer particles. Using simulations of suspensions of swimming particles in a periodic domain, we capture this effect and show that…