Related papers: Active Particles as Mobile Microelectrodes for Sel…
The electric field of biological membranes has long been treated as a one-dimensional quantity, defined solely by the component normal to the bilayer (E_VERT). Here, we present a bioelectronic platform that enables controlled generation of…
The development of synthetic microswimmers has advanced our understanding of the fundamental self-propelled mechanisms of living systems. However, there are scarce studies at the microscale within highly structured anisotropic media, such…
Small composite objects, known as Janus particles, drive sustained scientific interest primarily targeted at biomedical applications, where such objects act as micro- or nanoscale actuators, carriers, or imaging agents. The major practical…
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…
Bacteria often traverse confined spaces to perform critical functions in symbiosis, infection, drug delivery, and soil bioremediation. While the canonical run-and-tumble strategy enables exploration, its reliance on constant sensing and…
The observation of neuron-like behaviour in bacteria, such as the occurrence of electric spiking and extended bioelectric signalling, points to the role of membrane dynamics in prokaryotes. Electrophysiology of bacteria, however, has been…
We describe colloidal Janus particles with metallic and dielectric faces that swim vigorously when illuminated by defocused optical tweezers without consuming any chemical fuel. Rather than wandering randomly, these optically-activated…
Antimicrobial biomaterials are critical to aid in the regeneration of oral soft tissue and prevent or treat localised bacterial infections. With the rising trend in antibiotic resistance, there is a pressing clinical need for new…
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…
Many biological microswimmers are capable of chemotaxis, i.e., they can sense an ambient chemical gradient and adjust their mechanism of motility to move towards or away from the source of the gradient. Synthetic active colloids endowed…
Self-organisation is driven by the interactions between the individual components of a system mediated by the environment, and is one of the most important strategies used by many biological systems to develop complex and functional…
Individual movements of a rod-like self-propelled particle on a flat substrate are quantified. Biological systems that fit into this description may be the Gram-negative delta-proteobacterium Myxococcus xanthus, Gram-negative bacterium…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
Solid-state nanopores have received substantial attention in the past years owing to their simplicity and potential applications expected in genomics, sensing, archival information storage, and computing. The underlying sensing technique of…
Controlled breakdown has recently emerged as a highly appealing technique to fabricate solid-state nanopores for a wide range of biosensing applications. This technique relies on applying an electric field of approximately 0.6-1 V/nm across…
Recently, great attention has been paid to the possibility of implementing hybrid electronic devices exploiting the self-assembling properties of single molecules. Impressive progress has been done in this field by using organic molecules…
Motile microorganisms, like bacteria and algae, unify abilities like self-propulsion, autonomous navigation, and decision-making on the micron scale. While recent breakthroughs have led to the creation of synthetic microswimmers and…
We numerically examine the driven transport of an overdamped self-propelled particle through a two-dimensional array of circular obstacles. A detailed analysis of transport quantifiers (mobility and diffusivity) has been performed for two…
Here, we report on a new class active particles capable of dynamically programmable motion powered by electricity. We have implemented physical principles that separate the propulsion and steering mechanisms of active motion using optically…
Bacteria can spontaneously develop collective motions by aligning their motions in dense systems. Here, we show that bacteria can also respond collectively to an alternating electrical field and form dynamic clusters oscillating at the same…