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Many types of molecular motors have been proposed and synthesized in recent years, displaying different kinds of motion, and fueled by different driving forces such as light, heat, or chemical reactions. We propose a new type of molecular…
Actuation remains a signifcant challenge in soft robotics. Actuation by light has important advantages: objects can be actuated from a distance, distinct frequencies can be used to actuate and control distinct modes with minimal…
Molecular motors are essential to the living, they generate additional fluctuations that boost transport and assist assembly. Self-propelled colloids, that consume energy to move, hold similar potential for the man-made assembly of…
Monopole-like electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in biology and condensed matter, but they are often screened by counter-ions and cannot be switched from attractive to repulsive. In colloidal science, where the prime goal is to…
Endowing materials with physical intelligence holds the key for a progress leap in robotic systems. In spite of the growing success for macroscopic devices, transferring these concepts to the microscale presents several challenges connected…
Active particles locally transduce energy into motion, leading to unusual and emergent behaviors. However, current synthetic particles lack sensing and adaptation mechanisms. Here, we demonstrate a novel regulation pathway, through the…
The process of self-assembly is guided by the minimization of free energy, which limits the symmetries available for assembly and ultimately the usefulness of devices fabricated in this fashion. Here, we demonstrate experimentally for the…
Integration of active matter in larger micro-devices can provide an embedded source of propulsion and lead to self-actuated micromachining systems that do not rely on any external power or control apparatus. Here we demonstrate that Janus…
Beams of light with helical wavefronts can be focused into ring-like optical traps known as optical vortices. The orbital angular momentum carried by photons in helical modes can be transferred to trapped mesoscopic objects and thereby…
In this Letter we show how a single beam optical trap offers the means for three-dimensional manipulation of semiconductor nanorods in solution. Furthermore rotation of the direction of the electric field provides control over the…
Colloidal particles dispersed in liquid crystals can form new materials with tunable elastic and electro-optic properties. In a periodic `blue phase' host, particles should template into colloidal crystals with potential uses in photonics,…
Light that carries linear or angular momentum can interact with a mechanical object giving rise to optomechanical effects. In particular, a photon transfers its intrinsic angular momentum to an object when the object either absorbs the…
Self-propelling bacteria are a dream of nano-technology. These unicellular organisms are not just capable of living and reproducing, but they can swim very efficiently, sense the environment and look for food, all packaged in a body…
DNA nanostructures are made using synthetic DNA strands, the sequences of which are designed such that they will self-assemble into the desired form by hybridization of complementary domains. Various structures and devices have been…
A liquid crystal optical device made of an optically anisotropic heterostructure is considered. The device consists of a cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) layer sandwiched by two phase-shifting anisotropic layers of a nematic liquid crystal…
While most of the studies on molecular machines have been performed in solution, interfacing these supramolecular systems with solid-state nanostructures and materials is very important in view of their utilization in sensing components…
Moving nanoparticles/atoms to study the nearfield interaction between them is one of the many approaches to explore the optical and electrical properties of these assemblies. Traditional approach included the self assembly by spinning or…
The recent discovery that electrons in nano-scale conductors can act like a highly viscous liquid has triggered a surge of research activities investigating consequences of this surprising fact. Here we demonstrate that the electronic…
Physical properties of composite materials can be pre-engineered by controlling their structure and composition at the mesoscale. Yet, approaches for achieving this are limited and rarely scalable. We introduce a new breed of self-assembled…
The generation of unidirectional motion has been a long-standing challenge in engineering of molecular motors and, more generally, machines. A molecular motor is characterized by a set of low energy states that differ in their…