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Active systems contain self-propelled particles and can spontaneously self-organize into patterns making them attractive candidates for the self-assembly of smart soft materials. One key limitation of our present understanding of these…
The diffusion of micro- and nanoswimmers in a fluid, confined within irregular structures that impose entropic barriers, is often modeled using overdamped active Brownian dynamics, where viscous effects are paramount and inertia is…
Active (i.e., self-propelled or swimming) particles moving through an isotropic fluid exhibit conventional diffusive behavior. We report anomalous diffusion of an active particle moving in an anisotropic, nematic background. Whilst the…
We describe a soft matter system of self-organized oblate micelles and plasmonic gold nanorods that exhibit a negative orientational order parameter. Because of anisotropic surface anchoring interactions, colloidal gold nanorods tend to…
Magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) are fascinating micro-organisms which possess embodied biomineralized nanomagnets providing them the ability to orient with the Earth's magnetic field. This property is presumably related to an evolutionary…
Both natural and artificial small-scale swimmers may often self-propel in environments subject to complex geometrical constraints. While most past theoretical work on low-Reynolds number locomotion addressed idealised geometrical…
Molecular Dynamics simulations of water molecules in nanometre sized cylindrical channels connecting two reservoirs show that the permeation of water is very sensitive to the channel radius and to electric polarization of the embedding…
Interactions between microorganisms and their complex flowing environments are essential in many biological systems. We develop a model for microswimmer dynamics in non-Newtonian Poiseuille flows. We predict that swimmers in…
Ensembles of gold nanoparticles present a magnetic behavior which is at odds with the weakly diamagnetic response of bulk gold. In particular, an unusual ferromagnetic order has been unveiled by several experiments. Here we investigate if…
In isotropic fluids like water, micrometer-scale swimmers have evolved swim strokes to translate despite their tiny size. As described by Purcell in his Scallop Theorem, reciprocal motions, like those performed by a scallop, cannot drive…
Contrasting with its sluggish behavior on standard solids, water is extremely mobile on superhydrophobic materials, as shown for instance by the continuous acceleration of drops on tilted water-repellent leaves. For much longer substrates,…
The dynamics and motion of multi-ciliated microswimmers with a spherical body and a small number N (with 5 < N < 60) of cilia with length comparable to the body radius, is investigated by mesoscale hydrodynamics simulations. A metachronal…
Magnetization reversals through the formation of vortex state and the rotation of onion state are two processes with comparable probabilities for symmetric magnetic nanorings with radius of about 50 nanometers. This magnetic bistability is…
Microorganisms are rarely found in Nature swimming freely in an unbounded fluid. Instead, they typically encounter other organisms, hard walls, or deformable boundaries such as free interfaces or membranes. Hydrodynamic interactions between…
Marine microorganisms must cope with complex flow patterns and even turbulence as they navigate the ocean. To survive they must avoid predation and find efficient energy sources. A major difficulty in analysing possible survival strategies…
By tailoring geometrical properties of magnetic nanocap structures, new possibilities appear to control its magnetic properties, such as the dynamics of magnetic vortices. Here, we develop an approach to describe dynamics of magnetic…
Microswimmer suspensions in Newtonian fluids exhibit unusual macroscale properties, such as a superfluidic behavior, which can be harnessed to perform work at microscopic scales. Since most biological fluids are non-Newtonian, here we study…
Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…
Many microswimmers are inherently chiral, and this chirality can introduce fascinating behaviors in a collection of microswimmers. The dynamics become even more intriguing when two types of microswimmers with distinct chirality are mixed.…
Nanofluidics is pivotal in fundamental research and diverse applications, from water desalination to energy harvesting and biological analysis. Dynamically manipulating nanofluidic properties, such as diffusion and friction, presents an…