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Collections of persistently moving active particles are an example of a nonequilibrium heat bath. One way to study the nature of nonequilibrium fluctuations in such systems is to follow the dynamics of an embedded probe particle. With this…
We study the role of hydrodynamic interactions in the collective behaviour of collections of microscopic active particles suspended in a fluid. We introduce a novel calculational framework that allows us to separate the different…
The dynamics of a probe particle is highly influenced by the nature of the bath in which it is immersed. In particular, baths composed by active (e.g., self-propelled) particles induce intriguing out-of-equilibrium effects on tracer's…
In a system of colloidal inclusions suspended in a thermalized bath of smaller particles, the bath engenders an attractive force between the inclusions, arising mainly from entropic origins, known as the depletion force. In the case of…
We investigated the actuation performances of anisotropic gels driven by mechanical and chemical stimuli, in terms of both deformation processes and stroke--curves, and distinguished between the fast response of gels before diffusion starts…
Microswimmers and active colloids often move in confined systems, including those involving interfaces. Such interfaces, especially at the microscale, may deform in response to the stresses of the flow created by the active particle. We…
Investigating the behavior of amorphous solids under various external loading conditions continues to be an intriguing area of research with significant practical implications. In this study, we demonstrate the utilization of self-motility…
Active nematics are out-of-equilibrium systems in which energy injection at the microscale drives emergent collective behaviors, from spontaneous flows to active turbulence. While the dynamics of these systems have been extensively studied,…
While the behavior of vesicles in thermodynamic equilibrium has been studied extensively, how active forces control vesicle shape transformations is not understood. Here, we combine theory and simulations to study the shape behavior of…
We experimentally study the dynamics of active particles (APs) in a viscoelastic fluid under various geometrical constraints such as flat walls, spherical obstacles and cylindrical cavities. We observe that the main effect of the confined…
Magnetic gels with embedded micro/nano-sized magnetic particles in crosslinked polymer networks can be actuated by external magnetic fields, with changes in their internal microscopic structures and macroscopic mechanical properties. We…
We numerically examine ballistic active disks driven through a random obstacle array. Formation of a pinned or clogged state occurs at much lower obstacle densities for the active disks than for passive disks. As a function of obstacle…
Active gels are a class of biologically-relevant material containing embedded agents that spontaneously generate forces acting on a sparse filament network. In vitro experiments of protein filaments and molecular motors have revealed a…
We report, for the first time, some experimental observations regarding a new type of long range interaction between rigid particles that prevails when they are suspended in an soft elastic gel. A denser particle submerges itself to a…
Active-elastic instabilities are common phenomena in the natural world which have the aspect of sudden mechanical morphings. Frequently, the driving force of the instability mechanisms has a chemo-mechanical nature which makes these kind of…
We consider a suspension of active rigid particles (swimmers) in a steady Stokes flow, where particles are distributed according to a stationary ergodic random process, and we study its homogenization in the macroscopic limit. A key point…
Particle surface chemistry and internal softness are two fundamental parameters in governing the mechanical properties of dense colloidal suspensions, dictating structure and flow, therefore of interest from materials fabrication to…
The design of artificial microswimmers has generated significant research interest in recent years, for promise in applications such as nanomotors and targeted drug-delivery. However, many current designs suffer from a common problem,…
Dynamical clustering represents a characteristic feature of active matter consisting of self-propelled agents that convert energy from the environment into mechanical motion. At the micron scale, typical of overdamped dynamics, particles…
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…