Related papers: Metallic Microswimmers Driven up the Wall by Gravi…

We present an experiment where three mesoscopic soft ferromagnetic beads are placed onto a liquid surface and submitted to the influence of magnetic fields. A vertical magnetic field creates a repulsion which counterbalances the capillary…

Catalytic colloidal swimmers that propel due to self-generated fluid flows exhibit strong affinity for surfaces. We here report experimental measurements of significantly different velocities of such microswimmers in the vicinity of…

Marine plankton are usually modeled as settling elongated micro-swimmers. For the first time, we consider the torque induced by fluid inertia on such swimmers, and we discover that they spontaneously swim in the direction opposite to…

Flagellated bacteria are hydrodynamically attracted to rigid walls, yet past work shows a 'hovering' state where they swim stably at a finite height above surfaces. We use numerics and theory to reveal the physical origin of hovering.…

Active systems comprised of self-propelled units show fascinating transitions from Brownian-like dynamics to collective coherent motion. Swirling of swimming bacteria is a spectacular example. This study demonstrates that a nematic liquid…

We study the orientation statistics of spheroidal, axisymmetric microswimmers, with shapes ranging from disks to rods, swimming in chaotic, moderately turbulent flows. Numerical simulations show that rod-like active particles preferentially…

Phototaxis is a light driven self-locomotion of mass and a common phenomenon in motile organisms with varieties of motility such as in bacteria, algae, etc. In naturally occurring organisms, mechanical force is generated utilising their…

Many biological microswimmers can modulate their swimming gait to achieve directional control of motility, especially when performing steering towards specific directional cues. This can be achieved without the need for obvious…

Many plankton species undergo daily vertical migration to large depths in the turbulent ocean. To do this efficiently, the plankton can use a gyrotactic mechanism, aligning them with gravity to swim downwards, or against gravity to swim…

Many fascinating properties of biological active matter crucially depend on the capacity of constituting entities to perform directed motion, e.g., molecular motors transporting vesicles inside cells or bacteria searching for food. While…

Microorganisms often encounter anisotropy, for example in mucus and biofilms. We study how anisotropy and elasticity of the ambient fluid affects the speed of a swimming microorganism with a prescribed stroke. Motivated by recent…

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…

Microswimmers often use chirality to generate translational movement from rotation motion, exhibiting distinct behaviors in complex fluids compared to simple Newtonian fluids. However, the underlying mechanism remains incompletely…

Microorganisms often encounter strong confinement and complex hydrodynamic flows while navigating their habitats. Combining finite-element methods and stochastic simulations, we study the interplay of active transport and heterogeneous…

We investigate the collective transport properties of microscopic magnetic rollers that propel close to a surface due to a circularly polarized, rotating magnetic field. The applied field exerts a torque to the particles, which induces a…

Systems of motile microorganisms exhibit a multitude of collective phenomena, including motility-induced phase separation and turbulence. Sensing of the environment and adaptation of movement plays an essential role in the emergent…

Self-organized collective behaviour of active units is inspiring new designs of artificial swarms of micron-sized objects. However, active control at the nanoscale remains elusive. We have accurately solved the collective optofluidic…

We assess the potentiality of several geometries of metallic nanodimers (one of the simplest thermoplasmonic systems) as candidates for active particles (nanoswimmers) propelled and controlled by light (phototaxis). The studied nanodimers…

Microorganisms navigate through fluid, often confined by complex environments, to survive and sustain life. Inspired by this fact, we consider a model system and seek to understand the wall curvature driven dynamics of a squirmer, a…

Transport of material across liquid interfaces is ubiquitous for living cells and is also a crucial step in drug delivery and in many industrial processes. The fluids that are present on either side of the interfaces will usually have…