Related papers: Reconfigurable Artificial Microswimmers with Inter…
Active fluids generate spontaneous, often chaotic mesoscale flows. Harnessing these flows to drive embedded soft materials into structures with controlled length scales and lifetimes is a key challenge at the interface between the fields of…
We report the experimental discovery of a self-assembled capsule, with density set by interfacial glass beads and an internal bubble, that automatically performs regular oscillations up and down a vial in response to a temperature gradient.…
We experimentally study the motion of light-activated colloidal microswimmers in a viscoelastic fluid. We find that, in such a non-Newtonian environment, the active colloids undergo an unexpected transition from enhanced angular diffusion…
We use dedicated microfluidic devices to expose soft hydrogel particles to a rapid change in the externally applied osmotic pressure and observe a non-monotonic response: After an initial rapid compression the particle slowly reswells to…
Hydrogels are widespread soft materials, which can serve a wide range of applications. The control over the viscoelastic properties of the gel is of paramount importance. Ongoing environmental issues have raised the consumer's concern…
We investigate a self-organized swimmer at low Reynolds numbers. The microscopic swimmer is composed of three spheres that are connected by two identical active linker arms. Each linker arm contains molecular motors and elastic elements and…
Inspired by biology's use of vesicles for targeted transport, many studies have propelled liposomes with active matter, creating synthetic systems that can be viewed as microscale biohybrid robots. Nevertheless, the underlying motility…
The processing of information is an indispensable property of living systems realized by networks of active processes with enormous complexity. They have inspired many variants of modern machine learning one of them being reservoir…
Modular microrobotics can potentially address many information-intensive microtasks in medicine, manufacturing and the environment. However, surface area has limited the natural powering, communication, functional integration, and…
External forces acting on a microswimmer can feed back on its self-propulsion mechanism. We discuss this load response for a generic microswimmer that swims by cyclic shape changes. We show that the change in cycle frequency is proportional…
Different phoretic driving mechanisms have been proposed for the transport of solid or liquid microscopic inclusions in integrated chemical processes. However, the ability to reversibly address both the flow path, rate, and local reactant…
Locomotion and transport of microorganisms in fluids is an essential aspect of life. Search for food, orientation toward light, spreading of off-spring, and the formation of colonies are only possible due to locomotion. Swimming at the…
A model of an autonomous three-sphere microswimmer is proposed by implementing a coupling effect between the two natural lengths of an elastic microswimmer. Such a coupling mechanism is motivated by the previous models for synchronization…
In simulations, particles are traditionally treated as rigid platforms with variable sizes, shapes and interaction parameters. While this representation is applicable for rigid core platforms, particles consisting of soft platforms (e.g.…
Due to the combined effect of anisotropic interactions and activity, Janus swimmers are capable to self-assemble in a wide variety of structures, many more than their equilibrium counterpart. This might lead to the development of novel…
A mesoscopic hydrodynamic model to simulate synthetic self-propelled Janus particles which is thermophoretically or diffusiophoretically driven is here developed. We first propose a model for a passive colloidal sphere which reproduces the…
Microswimmers are active particles of microscopic size that self-propel by setting the surrounding fluid into motion. According to the kind of far-field fluid flow that they induce, they are classified into pushers and pullers. Many studies…
For natural microswimmers, the interplay of swimming activity and external flow can promote robust motion, e.g. propulsion against ("upstream rheotaxis") or perpendicular to the direction of flow. These effects are generally attributed to…
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…
Understanding how microscopic motility shapes emergent collective behaviors is a challenging task in active matter, especially when self-propulsion is regulated by external cues or via quorum-sensing interactions. To address this problem,…