Related papers: Engineering reconfigurable flow patterns via surfa…
Surfaces are at the frontier of every known solid. They provide versatile supports for functional nanostructures and mediate essential physicochemical processes. Being intimately related with 2D materials, interfaces and atomically thin…
Active nematic fluids confined in narrow channels generate spontaneous flows when the activity is sufficiently intense. Recently, it was shown that if the molecular anchoring at the channel walls is conflicting flows are initiated even in…
Active stresses, which are collectively generated by the motion of energy-consuming rod-like constituents, generate chaotic autonomous flows. Controlling active stresses in space and time is an essential prerequisite for controlling the…
Microorganisms are able to overcome the thermal randomness of their surroundings by harvesting energy to navigate in viscous fluid environments. In a similar manner, synthetic colloidal microswimmers are capable of mimicking complex…
In the present study we investigate electrostatic stabilization mechanisms acting on stratified fluids. Electric fields have been shown to control and even suppress the Rayleigh-Taylor instability when a heavy fluid lies above lighter…
Particle suspensions in confined geometries can become clogged, which can have a catastrophic effect on function in biological and industrial systems. Here, we investigate the macroscopic dynamics of suspensions in constricted geometries.…
The ability to dictate colloid motion is an important challenge in fields ranging from materials science to living systems. Here, by embedding energy landscapes in confined nematic liquid crystals, we design a versatile platform to define…
Recent progress in colloidal science has led to elaborate self-assembled structures whose complexity raises hopes for elaborating new materials. However, the throughputs are extremely low and consequently, the chance to produce materials of…
Cell monolayers are a central model system to tissue biophysics. In vivo, epithelial tissues are curved on the scale of microns, and curvature's role in the onset of spontaneous tissue flows is still not well-understood. Here, we present a…
Differently from passive Brownian particles, active particles, also known as self-propelled Brownian particles or microswimmers and nanoswimmers, are capable of taking up energy from their environment and converting it into directed motion.…
We investigate the steady-state organisation of active particles residing on an interface. Particle activity induces interface deformations, while the local shape of the interface guides particle movement. We consider multiple species of…
Crumpled paper or drapery patterns are everyday examples of how elastic sheets can respond to external forcing. In this Letter, we study experimentally a novel sort of forcing. We consider a circular flexible plate clamped at its center and…
Slicks are thin viscous films that can be found at the air--water interface of water bodies such as lakes, rivers and oceans. These micro-layers are enriched in surfactants, organic matter, and microorganisms, and exhibit steep physical and…
Motor-proteins are responsible for transport inside cells. Harnessing their activity is key towards developing new nano-technologies, or functional biomaterials. Cytoskeleton-like networks, recently tailored in vitro, result from the…
Motivated by recent experimental advances (Stroock et al. 2002) in microfluidic mixers, we study the passive mixing and flow properties of a patterned microchannel by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Such geometries overcome the…
In equilibrium, the physical properties of matter are set by the interactions between the constituents. In contrast, the energy input of the individual components controls the behavior of synthetic or living active matter. Great progress…
We use moving light patterns to control the motion of {\it Escherichia coli} bacteria whose motility is photo-activated. Varying the pattern speed controls the magnitude and direction of the bacterial flux, and therefore the accumulation of…
We introduce fluctuating hydrodynamics approaches on surfaces for capturing the drift-diffusion dynamics of particles and microstructures immersed within curved fluid interfaces of spherical shape. We take into account the interfacial…
By confining colloidal active fluids in microchannel networks, we demonstrate that their degenerate flows corresponds to the configurations of the six-vertex model. We use this quantitative correspondence to control and explain the active…
Surface-subsurface flow models for hydrological applications solve a coupled multiphysics problem. This usually consists of some form of the Richards and shallow water equations. A typical setup couples these two nonlinear partial…