Related papers: Colloids in Two-Dimensional Active Nematics: Confo…
The study of liquid crystals at equilibrium has led to fundamental insights into the nature of ordered materials, as well as to practical applications such as display technologies. Active nematics are a fundamentally different class of…
The interaction between two disks immersed in a 2D nematic is investigated (i) analitically using the tensor order parameter formalism for the nematic configuration around isolated disks and (ii) numerically using finite element methods…
Active matter locally converts chemical energy into mechanical work and, for this reason, it provides new mechanisms of pattern formation. In particular, active gels made of protein motors and filaments are far-from-equilibrium systems that…
The stochastic dynamics of colloidal particles with surface activity--in the form of catalytic reaction or particle release--and self-phoretic effects is studied analytically. Three different time scales corresponding to inertial effects,…
Monte Carlo simulation, experiment and continuum theory are used to examine the anchoring exhibited by a nematic liquid crystal at a patterned substrate comprising a periodic array of rectangles that, respectively, promote vertical and…
The dynamics of chiral nuclei is investigated for the first time with the time-dependent and tilted axis cranking covariant density functional theories on a three-dimensional space lattice in a microscopic and self-consistent way. The…
We study a new type of 2D active material that exhibits macroscopic phases with two emergent broken symmetries: self-propelled achiral particles that form dense hexatic clusters, which spontaneously rotate. We experimentally realise active…
Circular swimmers with tunable orbit radius and chirality are gaining attention due to their potential to illustrate novel collective phases in simulations and synthetic and biological active matter. Here, we present a facile experimental…
We consider a rigid assembly of two active Brownian particles, forming an active colloidal dimer, in a gradient of activity. We show analytically that depending on the relative orientation of the two particles the active dimer accumulates…
Active matter systems - such as a collection of active colloidal particles - operate far from equilibrium with complex inter-particle interactions that govern their collective dynamics. Predicting the collective dynamics of such systems may…
Biological organisms often have elongated, flexible structures with some degree of chirality in their bodies or movements. In nature, these organisms frequently take advantage of self-encapsulation mechanisms that create folded…
Mixing colloid shapes with distinctly different anisotropy generates composite nematics in which the order of the individual components can be fundamentally different. In colloidal rod-disk mixtures or hybrid nematics composed of…
Recent experiments on active materials, such as dense bacterial suspensions and microtubule-kinesin motor mixtures, show a promising potential for achieving self-sustained flows. However, to develop active microfluidics it is necessary to…
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 present results of molecular dynamics simulations for two-dimensional repulsively interacting colloids driven by a one dimensional asymmetric and commensurate ratchet potential, switching on and off stochastically. This drives a…
Using minimal models for low Reynolds number passive and active rotors in a fluid, we characterize the hydrodynamic interactions among rotors and the resulting dynamics of a pair of interacting rotors. This allows us to treat in a common…
Active colloids and externally actuated semi-flexible filaments provide basic building blocks for designing autonomously motile micro-machines. Here, we show that a passive semi-flexible filament can be actuated and transported by attaching…
Collections of simple, self-propelled colloidal particles exhibit complex, emergent dynamical behavior, with promising applications in microrobotics. When confined within a deformable vesicle, self-propelled rods cluster and align,…
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…
We consider the dynamics of active nematics droplets on flat surfaces, based on the continuum hydrodynamic theory. We investigate a wide range of dynamical regimes as a function of the activity and droplet size on surfaces characterized by…