Related papers: Self-thermophoresis at the nanoscale using light i…
Self-propelled particles can exhibit surprising non-equilibrium behaviors, and how they interact with obstacles or boundaries remains an important open problem. Here we show that chemically propelled micro-rods can be captured, with little…
The diffusion of active microscopic organisms in complex environments plays an important role in a wide range of biological phenomena from cell colony growth to single organism transport. Here, we investigate theoretically and…
Hot microswimmers are self-propelled Brownian particles that exploit local heating for their directed self-thermophoretic motion. We provide a pedagogical overview of the key physical mechanisms underlying this promising new technology. It…
We use molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the displacement of a simple butterfly-like molecular motor inside nanopores of various radii filled with a viscous medium. The medium is modeled with a versatile potential that may be…
Active particles break out of thermodynamic equilibrium thanks to their directed motion, which leads to complex and interesting behaviors in the presence of confining potentials. When dealing with active nanoparticles, however, the…
An artificial microswimmer drifts in response to spatio-temporal modulations of an activating suspension medium. We consider two competing mechanisms capable of influencing its tactic response: angular fluctuations, which help it explore…
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…
Artificial phoretic particles swim using self-generated gradients in chemical species (self-diffusiophoresis) or charges and currents (self-electrophoresis). These particles can be used to study the physics of collective motion in active…
The development of high-performance multifunctional polymer-based electronic circuits is a major step towards future flexible electronics. Here, we demonstrate a tunable approach to fabricate such devices based on rationally designed…
Polymer fibers are currently exploited in tremendously important technologies. Their innovative properties are mainly determined by the behavior of the polymer macromolecules under the elongation induced by external mechanical or…
A good representation of mesoscopic fluids is required to combine with molecular simulations at larger length and time scales (De Fabritiis {\it et. al}, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 134501 (2006)). However, accurate computational models of the…
Many microorganisms, with phytoplankton and zooplankton as prominent examples, display phototactic behaviour, that is, the ability to perform directed motion within a light gradient. Here we experimentally demonstrate that sensing of light…
A scalable excitation platform for nanophotonic emitters using individually addressable micro-LED-on-CMOS arrays is demonstrated for the first time. Heterogeneous integration by transfer-printing of semiconductor nanowires was used for the…
Molecular dynamics simulation is utilized to investigate the ionic transport of NaCl in solution through a graphene nanopore under an applied electric field. Results show the formation of concentration polarization layers in the vicinity of…
Much of our knowledge about dynamics and functionality of molecular systems has been achieved with femtosecond time-resolved spectroscopy. Despite extensive technical developments over the past decades, some classes of systems have eluded…
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…
Using large scale molecular dynamics simulations we study the orientational dynamics of a heated Janus particle which exhibits self-propulsion. The asymmetry in the microscopic interaction of the colloid with the solvent is implemented by…
Plasmonic absorption of light can lead to significant local heating in metallic nanostructures, an effect that defines the sub-field of thermoplasmonics and has been leveraged in diverse applications from biomedical technology to…
Active nanowires and nanofibers can be realized by the electric-field induced stretching of polymer solutions with sufficient molecular entanglements. The resulting nanomaterials are attracting an increasing attention in view of their…
We review recent advances in the design, synthesis, and modeling of active fluids. Active fluids have been at the center of many technological innovations and theoretical advances over the past two decades. Research on this new class of…