Related papers: Activity-controlled Annealing of Colloidal Monolay…
Miniaturized, self-propelled locomotors use chemo-mechanical transduction mechanisms to convert fuel in the environment to autonomous motion. Recent experimental and theoretical studies demonstrate that these autonomous engines can…
Thanks to a constant energy input, active matter can self-assemble into phases with complex architectures and functionalities such as living clusters that dynamically form, reshape and break-up, which are forbidden in equilibrium materials…
Understanding the out-of-equilibrium properties of noisy microscale systems and the extent to which they can be modulated externally, is a crucial scientific and technological challenge. It holds the promise to unlock disruptive new…
Living systems routinely consume energy to achieve motility, often using intricate biomolecular machinery. In this work, we show that active droplets can sustain indefinite self-propulsion of a spherical colloid in an otherwise homogeneous,…
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…
Motile living organisms routinely probe their surroundings to adapt in ever-evolving environments. Although synthetic microswimmers offer surrogates for self-propelled living entities, they often lack the complex feedback mechanisms that…
Catalytically active colloids maintain non-equilibrium conditions in which they produce and deplete chemicals and hence effectively act as sources and sinks of molecules. While individual colloids that are symmetrically coated do not…
Chemically powered self-propelled colloids generate a motor force by converting locally a source of energy into directed motion, a process that has been explored both in experiments and in computational models. The use of active colloids as…
Active colloids and externally actuated semi-flexible filaments provide basic building blocks for designing autonomously motile micro-machines. Here, we show that a passive semi-flexible filament can be actuated and transported by attaching…
Enhanced colloidal transport beyond the limit imposed by diffusion is usually achieved through external fields. Here, we demonstrate the ballistic transport of a colloidal sphere using internal sources of energy provided by an attached…
Designing protocols to dynamically direct the self-assembly of colloidal particles has become an important direction in soft matter physics because of the promising applications in fabrication of dynamic responsive functional materials.…
Self-powered motion in catalytic colloidal particles provides a compelling example of active matter, i.e. systems that engage in single-particle and collective behavior far from equilibrium. The long-time, long-distance behavior of such…
We study both experimentally and theoretically the dynamics of chemically self-propelled Janus colloids moving atop a two-dimensional crystalline surface. The surface is a hexagonally close-packed monolayer of colloidal particles of the…
Active matter comprises self-driven units, such as bacteria and synthetic microswimmers, that can spontaneously form complex patterns and assemble into functional microdevices. These processes are possible thanks to the out-of-equilibrium…
Light-activated self-propelled colloids are synthesized and their active motion is studied using optical microscopy. We propose a versatile route using different photoactive materials, and demonstrate a multiwavelength activation and…
We investigate a trapping mechanism for passive Brownian particles based on mixtures with self-propelled dipolar colloids. Active dipoles, whose magnetic moment is oriented perpendicularly to their propulsion direction, spontaneously form…
Active matter spans a wide range of time and length scales, from groups of cells and synthetic self-propelled particles to schools of fish, flocks of birds, or even human crowds. The theoretical framework describing these systems has shown…
Surface-driven flows are ubiquitous in nature, from subcellular cytoplasmic streaming to organ-scale ciliary arrays. Here, we model how confined geometries can be used to engineer complex hydrodynamic patterns driven by activity prescribed…
With exquisite precision and reproducibility, cells orchestrate the cooperative action of thousands of nanometer-sized molecular motors to carry out mechanical tasks at much larger length scales, such as cell motility, division and…
Active colloids are microscopic particles, which self-propel through viscous fluids by converting energy extracted from their environment into directed motion. We first explain how articial microswimmers move forward by generating…