Related papers: Using Shape Diversity on the way to new Structure-…

Two-dimensional shape-morphing networks are common in biological systems and have garnered attention due to their nontrivial physical properties that emanate from their cellular nature. Here, we present the fabrication and characterization…

Aquatic creatures exhibit remarkable adaptations of their body to efficiently interact with the surrounding fluid. The tight coupling between their morphology, motion, and the environment are highly complex but serves as a valuable example…

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…

Swimming cells and microorganisms must often move though complex fluids that contain an immersed microstructure such as polymer molecules, or filaments. In many important biological processes, such as mammalian reproduction and bacterial…

Many biological microswimmers can modulate their swimming gait to achieve directional control of motility, especially when performing steering towards specific directional cues. This can be achieved without the need for obvious…

We explore the mechanism underlying the anomalous rheology of puller-type microswimmer suspensions through direct hydrodynamic simulations. Puller-type swimmers generate contractile flow fields along their swimming direction, leading to…

Active systems comprising micron-sized self-propelling units, also termed microswimmers, are promising candidates for the bottom-up assembly of small structures and reconfigurable materials. Here we leverage field-driven colloidal assembly…

A paradigmatic microswimmer is the three-linked-spheres model, which follows a minimalist approach for propulsion by shape shifting. As such, it has been the subject of numerous analytical and numerical studies. In this Rapid Communication,…

Small objects can swim by generating around them fields or gradients which in turn induce fluid motion past their surface by phoretic surface effects. We quantify for arbitrary swimmer shapes and surface patterns, how efficient swimming…

Inspired by the classical Kepler and Rutherford problem, we investigate an analogous set-up in the context of active microswimmers: the behavior of a deformable microswimmer in a swirl flow. First we identify new steady bound states in the…

Biological microswimmers alter their motility in complex corner geometries, facilitating their survival. However, the dynamical features of low-Reynolds-number swimming at corners remain undefined. Here, we use active droplet microswimmers…

Contrasting the well explored problem on how to steer a macroscopic agent like an airplane or a moon lander to optimally reach a target, "optimal microswimming", i.e. the quest for the optimal navigation strategy for microswimmers, remains…

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…

External forces acting on a microswimmer can feed back on its self-propulsion mechanism. We discuss this load response for a generic microswimmer that swims by cyclic shape changes. We show that the change in cycle frequency is proportional…

A growing body of work aims at designing and testing micron-scale synthetic swimmers. One method, inspired by the locomotion of flagellated bacteria, consists of applying a rotating magnetic field to a rigid, helically-shaped, propeller…

This paper studies the influence of orienting external fields on pattern formation, particularly mesoscale turbulence, in microswimmer suspensions. To this end, we apply a hydrodynamic theory that can be derived from a microscopic…

External magnetic fields are known to attract and orient magnetically responsive colloidal particles. In the case of 2D microplatelets, rotating magnetic fields are typically used to orient them parallel to each other in a brick-and-mortar…

We study the energetic efficiency of navigating microswimmers by explicitly taking into account the geometry of their body. We show that, as their shape transitions from prolate to oblate, non-steering microswimmers rotated by flow…

Microscopic swimmers, e.g., chemotactic bacteria and cells, are capable of directed motion by exerting a force on their environment. For asymmetric microswimmers, e.g., bacteria, spermatozoa and many artificial active colloidal particles, a…

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…