Related papers: Nanoswimmers in a ratchet potential: Effects of a …
Self-propelled nanoparticles moving through liquids offer the possibility of creating advanced applications where such nanoswimmers can operate as artificial molecular-sized motors. Achieving control over the motion of nanoswimmers is a…
We present an experimental demonstration of a deterministic optical rocking ratchet. A periodic and asymmetric light pattern is created to interact with dielectric microparticles in water, giving rise to a ratchet potential. The sample is…
Ratchet effect, observed in many systems starting from living organism to artificially designed device, is a manifestation of motion in asymmetric potential. Here we report results of a conductivity study of Polypyrrole nanowires, which…
Thermal ratchets can extract useful work from random fluctuations. This is common in the molecular scale, such as motor proteins, and has also been used to achieve directional transport in microfluidic devices. In this work, we use the…
We consider the transport of rigid objects with internal structure in a flashing ratchet potential by investigating the overdamped behavior of a rod-like chain of evenly spaced point particles. In 1D, analytical arguments show that the…
A minimal design for a molecular swimmer is proposed that is a based on a mechanochemical propulsion mechanism. Conformational changes are induced by electrostatic actuation when specific parts of the molecule temporarily acquire net…
We consider the effect of surface undulations of nanochannels on the motion of particles in it. We report the mechanism of surface induced ratcheting transport of particles against fluid flow in nano channels. We show that, the typical…
Water molecules, confined in a carbon nanotube, were monitored using molecular dynamics simulation. Spontaneous directional transportation during a long timescale was observed in the symmetrical nanochannel by a ratchet-like mechanism. This…
We investigate the different regimes that emerge when a periodic driving force, the rocking force, acts on a collective feedback flashing ratchet. The interplay of the rocking and the feedback control gives a rich dynamics with different…
We study the rectified transport of underdamped active noninteracting particles in an asymmetric periodic potential. It is found that the ratchet effect of active noninteracting particles occurs in a single direction (along the easy…
External forces acting on a microswimmer can feed back on its self-propulsion mechanism. We discuss this load response for a generic microswimmer that swims by cyclic shape changes. We show that the change in cycle frequency is proportional…
Ratchet devices allow turning an ac input signal into a dc output signal. A ratchet device is set by moving particles driven by zero averages forces on asymmetric potentials. Hybrid nanostructures combining artificially fabricated spin-ice…
We investigate the dynamics of nanoscale droplets in the vicinity of chemical steps which separate parts of a substrate with different wettabilities. Due to long-ranged dispersion forces, nanodroplets positioned on one side of the step…
We present simulations that reveal a surprisingly large effect of hydrodynamic coupling on the speed of thermal ratchet motors. The model that we use considers particles performing thermal ratchet motion in a hydrodynamic solvent. Using…
Electromagnetically propelled helical nanoswimmers offer great potential for nanorobotic applications. Here, the effect of confinement on their propulsion is characterized using lattice-Boltzmann simulations. Two principal mechanisms give…
Ratchet effect -- a {\it dc} current induced by the electromagnetic wave impinging on the spatially modulated two-dimensional (2D) electron liquid -- occurs when the wave amplitude is spatially modulated with the same wave vector as the 2D…
We study the motion of a microscopic swimmer composed of a semiflexible polymer anchored at the surface of a magnetic sphere using hydrodynamic simulations and scaling arguments. The swimmer is driven by a rotating magnetic field, and…
Using computer simulations, we study a two-dimensional system of sterically interacting self-mobile run-and-tumble disk-shaped particles with an underlying periodic quasi-one-dimensional asymmetric substrate, and show that a rich variety of…
The nanoscale cylindrical Couette flow is investigated by means of molecular dynamics simulations, in the case where the inner cylinder is rotating whereas the outer cylinder is at rest. We find that the tangential velocity of the low is…
Directed transport in ratchets is determined by symmetry-breaking in a system out of equilibrium. A hallmark of rocking ratchets is current reversals: an increase in the rocking force changes the direction of the current. In this work for a…