Related papers: Mechanochemical Active Ratchet
The design of artificial microswimmers is often inspired by the strategies of natural microorganisms. Many of these creatures exploit the fact that elasticity breaks the time-reversal symmetry of motion at low Reynolds numbers, but this…
We consider the surface-induced ratcheting transport of particles in nano-channels, particularly at room temperature. We show that at room temperature it is possible to achieve ratcheting of about 10 nm size particles in a nano-channel of…
We show both numerically and analytically that a chemically patterned active pore can act as a micro/nano-pump for fluids, even if it is fore-aft symmetric. This is possible due to a spontaneous symmetry breaking which occurs when advection…
Active particles break out of thermodynamic equilibrium thanks to their directed motion, which leads to complex and interesting behaviors in the presence of confining potentials. When dealing with active nanoparticles, however, the…
Ciliated microswimmers and flagellated bacteria alter their swimming trajectories to follow the direction of an applied electric field exhibiting electrotaxis. Both for matters of application and physical modelling, it is instructive to…
Self-propelling active matter relies on the conversion of energy from the undirected, nanoscopic scale to directed, macroscopic motion. One of the challenges in the design of synthetic active matter lies in the control of dynamic states, or…
We consider mechanisms of directed transport in a ratchet model comprising, besides the external freedom where transport occurs, a chemical freedom that replaces the familiar external driving by an autonomous dynamics providing energy…
Understanding surface-driven transport is of paramount importance from the perspective of biological applications and the synthesis of microfluidic devices. In this work, we develop an analysis of a local inversion symmetry broken fluid…
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…
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…
Magnetotaxis is a well known phenomenon in swimming microorganisms which sense magnetic fields e.g. by incorporating crystalline magnetosomes. In designing artificial active matter with tunable dynamics, external magnetic fields can provide…
The rectilinear "drift" of particles in a hydrodynamic drift ratchet arises from a combination of diffusive motion and particle-wall hydrodynamic interactions, and is therefore dependent on particle diffusivity, particle size, the amplitude…
Nanoswimmers are ubiquitous in bio- and nano-technology but are extremely challenging to measure due to their minute size and driving forces. A simple method is proposed for detecting the elusive physical features of nanoswimmers by…
An artificial microswimmer drifts in response to spatio-temporal modulations of an activating suspension medium. We consider two competing mechanisms capable of influencing its tactic response: angular fluctuations, which help it explore…
"Active matter" refers to a class of out-of-equilibrium systems whose ability to transform environmental energy to kinetic energy is sought after in multiple fields of science and at very different length scales. At microscopic scales, an…
We give an overview over recent studies on the model of Active Brownian Motion (ABM) coupled to reservoirs providing free energy which may be converted into kinetic energy of motion. First, we present an introduction to a general concept of…
We introduce a model of chemically active particles of a multi-component fluid that can change their interactions with other particles depending on their state. Since such switching of interactions can only be maintained by the input of…
Self-propelling particles or microswimmers have opened a new field of investigation with both fundamental and practical perspectives. They represent very convenient model objects for experimental studies of active matter, and have…
Synthetic nanomotors powered by chemical reactions have been designed to act as vehicles for active cargo transport, drug delivery as well as a variety of other uses. Collections of such motors, acting in consort, can self-assemble to form…
Micromotors pushed by biological entities, like motile bacteria, constitute a fascinating way to convert chemical energy into mechanical work at the micrometer scale. Here we show, by using numerical simulations, that a properly designed…