Related papers: Surface microswimmers, harnessing the interface to…
Reciprocal movement cannot be used for locomotion at low-Reynolds number in an infinite fluid or near a rigid surface. Here we show that this limitation is relaxed for a body performing reciprocal motions near a deformable interface. Using…
This paper presents an overview and discussion of magnetocapillary self-assemblies. New results are presented, in particular concerning the possible development of future applications. These self-organizing structures possess the notable…
Synthetic microswimmers show great promise in biomedical applications such as drug delivery and microsurgery. Their locomotion, however, is subject to stringent constraints due to the dominance of viscous over inertial forces at low…
The aim of this paper is to describe the self-propulsion of a micro-robot (or micro-swimmer) consisting of $N$ spheres moving along a fixed line. The spheres are linked to each other by arms with the lengths changing periodically. For the…
Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…
Microorganisms are rarely found in Nature swimming freely in an unbounded fluid. Instead, they typically encounter other organisms, hard walls, or deformable boundaries such as free interfaces or membranes. Hydrodynamic interactions between…
When swimming at low Reynolds numbers, inertial effects are negligible and reciprocal movements cannot induce net motion. Instead, symmetry breaking is necessary to achieve net propulsion. Directed swimming can be supported by magnetic…
In this study, we use numerical simulations to investigate the flow field induced by a single magnetic microrobot rotating with a constant angular speed about an axis perpendicular to an underlying surface. A parallel solver for steady…
Hydrodynamic interactions are crucial for determining the cooperative behavior of microswimmers at low Reynolds numbers. Here we provide a comprehensive analysis of the scaling and strength of the interactions in the case of a pair of…
Physics governing the locomotion of microorganisms and other microsystems is dominated by viscous damping. An effective swimming strategy involves the non-reciprocal and periodic deformations of the considered body. Here, we show that a…
Few simulations exist for microswimmers near deformable interfaces. Here, we present numerical simulations of the hydrodynamic flows associated with a single microswimmer embedded in a binary fluid mixture. The two fluids demix, separated…
In low Reynolds number swimming and pumping, differently to everyday experience, a net motion (or flow) can be achieved only if the constructing parts of the swimmer (or pump) follow a non-trivial pattern of motion, in order to break time…
We study the orientational and translational dynamics of spherical microswimmers trapped at fluid interfaces, in terms of the force dipole and source dipole components of their flow field. Using numerical simulations and analytical…
We analyze a minimal model for a rigid spherical microswimmer and explore the consequences of its extended surface on the interplay between its self-propulsion and flow properties. The model is the first order representation of…
Transport of material across liquid interfaces is ubiquitous for living cells and is also a crucial step in drug delivery and in many industrial processes. The fluids that are present on either side of the interfaces will usually have…
Biological organisms swimming at low Reynolds number are often influenced by the presence of rigid boundaries and soft interfaces. In this paper we present an analysis of locomotion near a free surface with surface tension. Using a…
When a floating body is internally or externally vibrated, its self-generated wavefield can lead to steady propulsion along the interface. In this article, we review several related and recently discovered systems that leverage this…
Micro-scale swimming robots have been envisaged for many medical applications such as targeted drug delivery, where the microrobot will be expected to navigate in a fluid through channels carrying a payload. Alternatively, in many cases,…
Conventionally, a microscopic particle that performs a reciprocal stroke cannot move through its environment. This is because at small scales, the response of simple Newtonian fluids is purely viscous and flows are time-reversible. We show…
Biological and artificial microswimmers often have to propel through a variety of environments, ranging from heterogeneous suspending media to strong geometrical confinement. Under confinement, local flow fields generated by microswimmers,…