Related papers: Submersed Micropatterned Structures Control Active…
Engineering synthetic materials that mimic the remarkable complexity of living organisms is a fundamental challenge in science and technology. We study the spatiotemporal patterns that emerge when an active nematicfilm of microtubules and…
The topological properties of many materials are central to their behavior, with the dynamics of topological defects being particularly important to intrinsically out-of-equilibrium, active materials. In this paper, local manipulation of…
In vitro reconstituted active systems, such as the ATP-driven microtubule bundle suspension developed by the Dogic group, provide a fertile testing ground for elucidating the phenomenology of active liquid crystalline states. Controlling…
Active emulsions and liquid crystalline shells are intriguing and experimentally realisable types of topological matter. Here we numerically study the morphology and spatiotemporal dynamics of a double emulsion, where one or two passive…
Active fluid droplets surrounded by oil can spontaneously develop circulatory flows. However, the dynamics of the surrounding oil and their influence on the active fluid remain poorly understood. To investigate interactions between the…
Surface-driven flows are ubiquitous in nature, from subcellular cytoplasmic streaming to organ-scale ciliary arrays. Here, we model how confined geometries can be used to engineer complex hydrodynamic patterns driven by activity prescribed…
A paradigm for internally driven matter is the active nematic liquid crystal, whereby the equations of a conventional nematic are supplemented by a minimal active stress that violates time reversal symmetry. In practice, active fluids may…
Compared to isotropic liquids, orientational order of nematic liquid crystals makes their rheological properties more involved, and thus requires fine control of the flow parameters to govern the orientational patterns. In microfluidic…
While many living biological media combine both viscous and elastic properties, most theoretical studies employ either purely fluid- or solid-like descriptions. We here use a unified framework for active films on substrates capable of…
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…
Active processes drive and guide biological dynamics across scales -- from subcellular cytoskeletal remodelling, through tissue development in embryogenesis, to population-level bacterial colonies expansion. In each of these, biological…
Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…
Active materials are capable of converting free energy into directional motion, giving rise to striking dynamical phenomena. Developing a general understanding of their structure in relation to the underlying non-equilibrium physics would…
Biological systems achieve precise control over ambient fluids through the self-organization of active protein structures including flagella, cilia, and cytoskeletal networks. In active structures individual proteins consume chemical energy…
The spontaneous emergence of collective flows is a generic property of active fluids and often leads to chaotic flow patterns characterised by swirls, jets, and topological disclinations in their orientation field. However, the ability to…
Liquid shells (e.g. double emulsions, vesicles etc.) are susceptible to interfacial instability and rupturing when driven out of mechanical equilibrium. This poses a significant challenge for the design of liquid shell based micro-machines,…
The interplay between active matter and its environment is central to understanding emergent behavior in biological and synthetic systems. Here, we show that coupling active nematic flows to small-amplitude deformations of a compliant…
Active nematic fluids confined in narrow channels generate spontaneous flows when the activity is sufficiently intense. Recently, it was shown that if the molecular anchoring at the channel walls is conflicting flows are initiated even in…
Confined active nematics exhibit rich dynamical behavior, including spontaneous flows, periodic defect dynamics, and chaotic `active turbulence'. Here, we study these phenomena using the framework of Exact Coherent Structures, which has…
We numerically study the dynamics of a passive fluid droplet confined within a microchannel whose walls are covered with a thin layer of active gel. The latter represents a fluid of extensile material modelling, for example, a suspension of…