Related papers: Engineering passive swimmers by shaking liquids
Active matter systems, due to their spontaneous self-propulsion ability, hold potential for future applications in healthcare and environmental sustainability. Marangoni swimmers, a type of synthetic active matter, are a common model system…
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…
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…
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…
Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…
Symmetry breaking is essential for biological microswimmers to achieve locomotion in viscous environments. Such asymmetry in the swimming mechanism enables the generation of directional forces that overcome fluid resistance, leading to…
We analyze the creeping flow generated by a spherical particle moving through a viscous fluid with nematic directional order, in which momentum diffusivity is anisotropic and which opposes resistance to bending. Specifically, we provide…
Most classical work on the hydrodynamics of low-Reynolds-number swimming addresses deterministic locomotion in quiescent environments. Thermal fluctuations in fluids are known to lead to a Brownian loss of the swimming direction. As most…
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…
Due to the combined effect of anisotropic interactions and activity, Janus swimmers are capable to self-assemble in a wide variety of structures, many more than their equilibrium counterpart. This might lead to the development of novel…
Several recent experiments investigate the orientational and transport behavior of self-driven bacteria and colloidal particles in nematic liquid crystals. Correspondingly, we study theoretically the dynamics of a minimal model microswimmer…
Microscopic active droplets are able to swim autonomously in viscous flows: this puzzling feature stems from solute exchanges with the surrounding fluid via surface reactions or their spontaneous solubilisation, and the interfacial flows…
In this article, we consider a swimmer (i.e. a self-deformable body) immersed in a fluid, the flow of which is governed by the stationary Stokes equations. This model is relevant for studying the locomotion of microorganisms or micro robots…
The acoustofluidic method holds great promise for manipulating microorganisms. When exposed to the steady vortex structures of acoustic streaming flow, these microorganisms exhibit intriguing dynamic behaviors, such as hydrodynamic trapping…
We consider a suspension of active rigid particles (swimmers) in a steady Stokes flow, where particles are distributed according to a stationary ergodic random process, and we study its homogenization in the macroscopic limit. A key point…
While active systems possess notable potential to form the foundation of new classes of autonomous materials, designing systems that can extract functional work from active surroundings has proven challenging. In this work, we extend these…
Motile and driven particles confined in microfluidic channels exhibit interesting emergent behavior from propagating density bands to density shock waves. A deeper understanding of the physical mechanisms responsible for these emergent…
Microorganisms often encounter anisotropy, for example in mucus and biofilms. We study how anisotropy and elasticity of the ambient fluid affects the speed of a swimming microorganism with a prescribed stroke. Motivated by recent…
The design of artificial microswimmers is often inspired by the strategies of natural microorganisms. Many of these creatures exploit the fact that elasticity breaks the time-reversal symmetry of motion at low Reynolds numbers, but this…
Swimming cells often have to self-propel through fluids displaying non-Newtonian rheology. While past theoretical work seems to indicate that stresses arising from complex fluids should systematically hinder low-Reynolds number locomotion,…