Related papers: Active doping controls the mode of failure in dens…
External fields can decidedly alter the free energy landscape of soft materials and can be exploited as a powerful tool for the assembly of targeted nanostructures and colloidal materials. Here, we use computer simulations to demonstrate…
Colloidal gels are prime examples of functional materials exhibiting disordered, amorphous, yet meta-stable forms. They maintain stability through short-range attractive forces and their material properties are tunable by external forces.…
We numerically study the energy transfer in a multi-component $2d$ film, made of an active polar gel and a passive isotropic fluid in presence of surfactant favoring emulsification. We show that by confining the active behavior into the…
Colloids that interact via a short-range attraction serve as the primary building blocks for a broad range of self-assembled materials. However, one of the well-known drawbacks to this strategy is that these building blocks rapidly and…
We study the dynamics of quasi-two-dimensional concentrated suspensions of colloidal particles in active gels by computer simulations. Remarkably, we find that activity induces a dynamic clustering of colloids even in the absence of any…
Ultrastable glasses are known for their exceptional mechanical stability but often fail in a brittle manner, typically marked by the formation of shear bands when subjected to shear deformation. An open question is how shear banding is…
Active droplets are artificial microswimmers built from a liquid dispersion by microfluidic tools and showing self-propelled motion. These systems hold particular interest for mimicking biological phenomena, such as some aspects of cell…
Colloidal gels, like many other soft and disordered solids derive their mechanical properties not only from the strength of interparticle attraction, but also from the symmetry of the forces that constrain particle motion. While non-central…
Self-propelled particles possessing permanent magnetic dipole moments occur naturally in magnetotactic bacteria and in man-made systems like active colloids or micro-robots. Yet, the interplay between self-propulsion and anisotropic…
Using numerical simulations, we characterized the behavior of an elastic membrane immersed in an active fluid. Our findings reveal a nontrivial folding and re-expansion of the membrane that is controlled by the interplay of its resistance…
Active gels made of cytoskeletal proteins are valuable materials with attractive non-equilibrium properties such as spatial self-organization and self-propulsion. At least four typical routes to spatial patterning have been reported to date…
Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…
We study colloidal gels formed by competing electrostatic repulsion and short-range attraction by means of extensive numerical simulations under external shear. We show that, upon varying the repulsion strength, the gel structure and its…
The effects of particle roughness and short-ranged non-central forces on colloidal gels are studied using computer simulations in which particles experience a sinusoidal variation in energy as they rotate. The number of minima $n$ and…
Swimmers and self-propelled particles are physical models for the collective behaviour and motility of a wide variety of living systems, such as bacteria colonies, bird flocks and fish schools. Such artificial active materials are amenable…
Dispersed colloidal particles within a suspension can aggregate and spontaneously self-organize into a robust, percolating structure known as a gel. These network-like structures are prevalent in nature and play a critical role in many…
The physical gelation of colloids produces elastic structures that are commonly used to stabilize complex fluids in multiple industries. However, the ability to control the level of elastic modulus of these materials is limited by the…
The emergence of hydrodynamic bend instabilities in ordered suspensions of active particles is widely observed across diverse living and synthetic systems, and is considered to be governed by dipolar active stresses generated by the…
Liquid-liquid phase separation is important across biology, physics, and materials science. Although usually studied at equilibrium, active components - such as motor proteins, enzymes, and synthetic microswimmers - are increasingly…
Systems containing active components are intrinsically out of equilibrium, while binary mixtures reach their equilibrium configuration when complete phase separation is achieved. Active particles are found to stabilise non-equilibrium…