Related papers: An active approach to colloidal self-assembly
External control of the swimming speed of `active particles' can be used to self assemble designer structures in situ on the micrometer to millimeter scale. We demonstrate such reconfigurable templated active self assembly in a fluid…
The progress of realizing colloidal structures mimicking natural forms of organization in condensed matter is inherently limited by the availability of suitable colloidal building blocks. To enable new forms of crystalline and…
Living systems routinely consume energy to achieve motility, often using intricate biomolecular machinery. In this work, we show that active droplets can sustain indefinite self-propulsion of a spherical colloid in an otherwise homogeneous,…
The fabrication of versatile building blocks that are reliably self-assemble into desired ordered and disordered phases is amongst the hottest topics in contemporary material science. To this end, microscopic units of varying complexity,…
Active matter spans a wide range of time and length scales, from groups of cells and synthetic self-propelled particles to schools of fish, flocks of birds, or even human crowds. The theoretical framework describing these systems has shown…
Recent studies aimed at investigating artificial analogs of bacterial colonies have shown that low-density suspensions of self-propelled particles confined in two dimensions can assemble into finite aggregates that merge and split, but have…
Charged colloidal particles propel themselves through asymmetric fluxes of chemically generated ions on their surface. We show that asymmetry in the surface charge distribution introduces a new mode of self-phoretic motion for chemically…
We study experimentally and numerically the motion of a self-phoretic active particle in two-dimensional (2D) loosely-packed colloidal crystals at fluid interfaces. Two scenarios emerge depending on the interaction between the active…
We report on the formation of colloidal complexes resulting from the electrostatic self-assembly of polyelectrolyte-neutral block copolymers and oppositely charged surfactants. The copolymers investigated are asymmetric and characterized by…
The dynamics and pair trajectory of two self-propelled colloids are reported. The autonomous motions of the colloids are due to a catalytic chemical reaction taking place asymmetrically on their surfaces that generates a concentration…
Molecular motors are essential to the living, they generate additional fluctuations that boost transport and assist assembly. Self-propelled colloids, that consume energy to move, hold similar potential for the man-made assembly of…
We study elastic interactions between colloidal particles and deformation landscapes of undulations in a cholesteric liquid crystal under an electric field applied normal to cholesteric layers. The onset of undulation instability is…
Active matter exhibits striking behaviour reminiscent of living matter and molecular fluids, and has promising applications in drug delivery or mixing at the micron scale. Active colloidal systems provide important models with simple and…
Self-propelled particles can spontaneously form dense phases from a dilute suspension in a process referred to as motility-induced phase separation. The properties of the out-of-equilibrium structures that are formed are governed by the…
The fabrication of novel soft materials is an important scientific and technological challenge. We investigate the response of magnetic ellipsoidal particles adsorbed at fluid-fluid interfaces to external magnetic fields. By exploiting…
With exquisite precision and reproducibility, cells orchestrate the cooperative action of thousands of nanometer-sized molecular motors to carry out mechanical tasks at much larger length scales, such as cell motility, division and…
To elucidate mechanisms of mesoscopic turbulence exhibited by active particles, we experimentally study turbulent states of non-living self-propelled particles. We realize an experimental system with dense suspensions of asymmetrical…
Protein aggregation in the form of amyloid fibrils has important biological and technological implications. Although the self-assembly process is highly efficient, aggregates not in the fibrillar form would also occur and it is important to…
We investigate the phase behavior and kinetics of a monodisperse mixture of active (\textit{i.e.}, self-propelled) and passive isometric Brownian particles through Brownian dynamics simulations and theory. As in a purely active system,…
The motion of an artificial micro-scale swimmer that uses a chemical reaction catalyzed on its own surface to achieve autonomous propulsion is fully characterized experimentally. It is shown that at short times, it has a substantial…