Related papers: Self-propelling Microdroplets Generated and Sustai…
The design of strategies to generate efficient mixing is crucial for a variety of applications, particularly digital microfluidic devices that use small "discrete" fluid volumes (droplets) as fluid carriers and microreactors. In recent…
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…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
Droplet formation is relevant in many applications spanning natural and artificial settings. A physical understanding of aerobreakup or air-assisted secondary atomization and predicting size distributions in these applications is…
The motion of active colloids is generally achieved through their anisotropy, as exemplified by Janus colloids. Recently, there was a growing interest in the propulsion of isotropic colloids, which requires some local symmetry breaking.…
Coarsening, the process where larger structures grow at the expense of smaller ones, is a fundamental aspect of multiphase systems. The cell cytoplasm exemplifies an out-of-equilibrium multiphase system, where phase-separated condensates…
Three-dimensional, time-dependent direct simulations of step emulsification micro-devices highlight two essential mechanisms for droplet formation: first, the onset of an adverse pressure gradient driving a back-flow of the continuous phase…
Hypothesis:Diffusion in confinement is an important fundamental problem with significant implications for applications of supported liquid phases. However, resolving the spatially dependent diffusion coefficient, parallel and perpendicular…
The condensational growth of spherical water microdroplets is studied in a laboratory setup and with a mathematical model. In the experiment, droplet clusters are kept in a freely levitated state within an upward-oriented flow of water…
Active matter comprised of self-propelled interacting units holds a major promise for extraction of useful work from its seemingly chaotic out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Streamlining active matter to produce work is especially important at…
Chemical reactions and biological processes are often governed by the structure and transport dynamics of the interface between two liquid phases. Despite their importance, our microscopic understanding of liquid-liquid interfaces has been…
The controlled handling of liquids and colloidal suspensions as they interact with surfaces, targeting a broad palette of related functionalities, is of great importance in science, technology, and nature. When small liquid volumes need to…
Phase separation in passive systems leads to uncontrolled droplet growth, limiting structural control in soft materials and cells. We identify a generic mechanism to arrest coarsening based on chemical interconversion between molecular…
Microfluidics involves the manipulation of flows at the microscale, typically requiring external power sources to generate pressure gradients. Alternatively, harnessing flows from active fluids, which are usually chaotic, has been proposed…
The unique ability of chaotic advection under micro-scale confinement to direct chemical processes along accelerated kinetic pathways has long been recognized. But practical applications have been slow to emerge because optimal results are…
Catalytically active particles suspended in a liquid can move due to self-phoresis by generating solute gradients via chemical reactions of the solvent occurring at parts of their surface. Such particles can be used as carriers at the…
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…
Typical bodily and environmental fluids encountered by biological swimmers consist of dissolved macromolecules such as proteins and polymers, often rendering them non Newtonian. To mimic such scenarios, we investigate the motion of swimming…
We report that liquids perform self-propelled motion when they are placed in contact with hot surfaces with asymmetric (ratchet-like) topology. The pumping effect is observed when the liquid is in the film-boiling regime, for many liquids…
We outline a basic strategy of how self-propulsion can be used to improve the yield of a typical colloidal self-assembly process. The success of this approach is predicated on the thoughtful design of the colloidal building block as well as…