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Various microorganisms and some mammalian cells are able to swim in viscous fluids by performing nonreciprocal body deformations, such as rotating attached flagella or by distorting their entire body. In order to perform chemotaxis, i.e. to…

In recent experiments involving PNIPAM copolymers it has been observed that stable spherical nanoparticles are being formed by association of several chains in poor aqueous solution instead of aggregation. This type of mesoscopic structures…

Swimming in low-Reynolds-number fluids requires the breaking of time-reversal symmetry and centrosymmetry. Microswimmers, often with asymmetric shapes, exhibit nonreciprocal motions or exploit nonequilibrium processes to propel. The role of…

Active colloidal particles provide versatile model systems for exploring non-equilibrium physics in motile matter. To date, most experimental realizations have focused on spherical particles, largely due to fabrication constraints. However,…

Active colloid clustering is central to understanding non-equilibrium self-organization, with implications for programmable active materials and synthetic or biological assemblies. While most prior studies have focused on dimers or small…

Semiflexible polymers are ubiquitous in natural and artificial systems, where their intermediate rigidity gives rise to rich structural and dynamical behavior. Confinement plays a central role in these behaviors, as spatial restrictions can…

Cooperation is vital for the survival of a swarm$^1$. Large scale cooperation allows murmuring starlings to outmaneuver preying falcons$^2$, shoaling sardines to outsmart sea lions$^3$, and homo sapiens to outlive their Pleistocene…

Self-assembly of colloidal particles is a promising avenue to control the shape and dynamics of larger aggregates. However, achieving the necessary fine control over the dynamics and specificity of the bonds between such particles remains a…

Self-propelled phoretic colloids have recently emerged as a promising avenue for the design of artificial swimmers. These swimmers combine purely phoretic interactions with intricate hydrodynamics which critically depend on the swimmer…

Fluid-structure interactions between active and passive components are important for many biological systems to function. A particular example is chromatin in the cell nucleus, where ATP-powered processes drive coherent motions of the…

We study the orientation statistics of spheroidal, axisymmetric microswimmers, with shapes ranging from disks to rods, swimming in chaotic, moderately turbulent flows. Numerical simulations show that rod-like active particles preferentially…

Self-propelled colloids (swimmers) in confining geometries follow trajectories determined by hydrodynamic interactions with the bounding surfaces. However, typically these interactions are ignored or truncated to lowest order. We…

Small objects can swim by generating around them fields or gradients which in turn induce fluid motion past their surface by phoretic surface effects. We quantify for arbitrary swimmer shapes and surface patterns, how efficient swimming…

We study how hydrodynamic interactions affect the collective behaviour of active particles suspended in a fluid at high concentrations, with particular attention to lubrication forces which appear when the particles are very close to one…

In recent years the functionality of synthetic active microparticles has edged even closer to that of their biological counterparts. However, we still lack the understanding needed to recreate at the microscale key features of autonomous…

We present a novel approach for finding and evaluating structural models of small metallic nanoparticles. Rather than fitting a single model with many degrees of freedom, the approach algorithmically builds libraries of nanoparticle…

Swimming cells and microorganisms must often move though complex fluids that contain an immersed microstructure such as polymer molecules, or filaments. In many important biological processes, such as mammalian reproduction and bacterial…

Biological systems often involve the self-assembly of basic components into complex and function- ing structures. Artificial systems that mimic such processes can provide a well-controlled setting to explore the principles involved and also…

We use coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations to study the motility of a 2D vesicle containing self-propelled rods, as a function of the vesicle bending rigidity and the number density, length, and activity of the enclosed rods.…

The ordering of nanoparticles into predetermined configurations is of importance to the design of advanced technologies. In this work, we moderate the surface anchoring against the bulk elasticity of liquid crystals to dynamically shape…