Related papers: Dynamic assembly of active colloids: theory and si…
Active colloids belong to a class of non-equilibrium systems where energy uptake, conversion and dissipation occurs at the level of individual colloidal particles, which can lead to particles self-propelled motion and surprising collective…
Colloidal particles can self-assemble into various ordered structures in fluid flows that have potential applications in biomedicine, materials synthesis and encryption. These dynamic processes are also of fundamental interest for probing…
We review recent progress in the theoretical description of anisotropic hard colloidal particles. The shapes considered range from rods and dumbbells to rounded cubes, polyhedra and to biaxial particles with arbitrary shape. Our focus is on…
The design of artificial microswimmers has generated significant research interest in recent years, for promise in applications such as nanomotors and targeted drug-delivery. However, many current designs suffer from a common problem,…
Active matter exhibits striking behaviour reminiscent of living matter and molecular fluids, and has promising applications in drug delivery or mixing at the micron scale. Active colloidal systems provide important models with simple and…
In active systems, whose constituents have non-equilibrium dynamics at local level, fluid-fluid phase separation is widely observed. Examples include the formation of membraneless organelles within cells; the clustering of self-propelled…
Active colloids self-organise to a variety of collective states, ranging from highly motile 'molecules' to complex 3D structures. Using large-scale simulations, we show that hydrodynamic interactions, together with a gravity-like aligning…
Unlike biological active matter that constantly adapt to their environment, the motors of synthetic active particles are typically agnostic to their surroundings and merely operate at constant force. Here, we design colloidal active rods…
Active systems evade the rules of equilibrium thermodynamics by constantly dissipating energy at the level of their microscopic components. This energy flux stems from the conversion of a fuel, present in the environment, into sustained…
Swimmers and self-propelled particles are physical models for the collective behaviour and motility of a wide variety of living systems, such as bacteria colonies, bird flocks and fish schools. Such artificial active materials are amenable…
Dynamical heterogeneities in a colloidal fluid close to gelation are studied by means of computer simulations. A clear distinction between some fast particles and the rest, slow ones, is observed, yielding a picture of the gel composed by…
A density functional theory for colloidal dynamics is presented which includes hydrodynamic interactions between the colloidal particles. The theory is applied to the dynamics of colloidal particles in an optical trap which switches…
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…
Active fluids comprise a variety of systems composed of elements immersed in a fluid environment which can convert some form of energy into directed motion; as such they are intrinsically out-of-equilibrium in the absence of any external…
Active matter is not only indispensable to our understanding of diverse biological processes, but also provides a fertile ground for discovering novel physics. Many emergent properties impossible for equilibrium systems have been…
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…
Active solids such as cell collectives, colloidal clusters, and active metamaterials exhibit diverse collective phenomena, ranging from rigid body motion to shape-changing mechanisms. The nonlinear dynamics of such active materials remains…
We investigate the self-assembly (crystallisation) of particles with hard cores and isotropic, square-well interactions, using a Monte Carlo scheme to simulate overdamped Langevin dynamics. We measure correlation and response functions…
The dispersion of a passive colloid immersed in a bath of non-interacting and non-Brownian run-and-tumble microswimmers in two dimensions is analyzed using stochastic simulations and an asymptotic theory, both based on a minimal model of…
We consider the dynamic wetting and dewetting processes of films and droplets of complex liquids on planar surfaces, focusing on the case of colloidal suspensions, where the particle interactions can be sufficiently attractive to cause…