Related papers: Photohermal Microswimmer Penetrate Cell Membrane w…
Phototaxis is a light driven self-locomotion of mass and a common phenomenon in motile organisms with varieties of motility such as in bacteria, algae, etc. In naturally occurring organisms, mechanical force is generated utilising their…
Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) perform wastewater treatment and electricity production through the conversion of organic matter using microorganisms. For practical applications, it has been suggested that greater efficiency can be achieved by…
Magnetotaxis is a well known phenomenon in swimming microorganisms which sense magnetic fields e.g. by incorporating crystalline magnetosomes. In designing artificial active matter with tunable dynamics, external magnetic fields can provide…
The locomotion and design of microswimmers are topical issues of current fundamental and applied research. In addition to numerous living and artificial active microswimmers, a passive microswimmer was identified only recently: a soft,…
An artificial microswimmer drifts in response to spatio-temporal modulations of an activating suspension medium. We consider two competing mechanisms capable of influencing its tactic response: angular fluctuations, which help it explore…
Here, we report on a new class active particles capable of dynamically programmable motion powered by electricity. We have implemented physical principles that separate the propulsion and steering mechanisms of active motion using optically…
All-optical controlled injection and acceleration of electrons in a laser wakefield has recently been achieved (Faure et al, Nature v. 444 p. 737, 2006). Injection was made using a second counterpropagating laser pulse with the same…
As a complementary tool to nanofluidics, biomolecular based transport is envisioned for nanotechnological devices. We report a new method for guiding microtubule shuttles on multi-walled carbon nanotube tracks, aligned by dielectrophoresis…
Micro/nano-scale propulsion has attracted considerable recent attention due to its promise for biomedical applications such as targeted drug delivery. In this paper, we report on a new experimental design and theoretical modelling of…
Many microorganisms, with phytoplankton and zooplankton as prominent examples, display phototactic behaviour, that is, the ability to perform directed motion within a light gradient. Here we experimentally demonstrate that sensing of light…
Illuminating a water solution with a focused continuous wave laser produces a strong local heating of the liquid that leads to the nucleation of bubbles, also known as thermocavitation. During the growth of the bubble, the surrounding…
Synthetic microswimmers mimicking biological movements at the microscale have been developed in recent years. Actuating helical magnetic materials with a homogeneous rotating magnetic field is one of the most widespread techniques for…
Active swimmers are ubiquitous in nature, found in many diverse biological systems ranging from bacteria to vertebrate fish. Of particular importance are sperm cells which are swimmers that are crucial for the survival of many species…
Thermocavitation, the creation of a vapor bubble by heating a liquid with a continuous-wave laser, has been studied for a wide range of applications. Examples include the development of an actuator for needle-free jet injectors, as the…
Hot microswimmers are self-propelled Brownian particles that exploit local heating for their directed self-thermophoretic motion. We provide a pedagogical overview of the key physical mechanisms underlying this promising new technology. It…
We use moving light patterns to control the motion of {\it Escherichia coli} bacteria whose motility is photo-activated. Varying the pattern speed controls the magnitude and direction of the bacterial flux, and therefore the accumulation of…
Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have crucial roles in the spread of tumors during metastasis. A decisive step is the extravasation of CTCs from the blood stream or lymph system, which depends on the ability of cells to attach to vessel…
Many motile microorganisms react to environmental light cues with a variety of motility responses guiding cells towards better conditions for survival and growth. The use of spatial light modulators could help to elucidate the mechanisms of…
Liquid metal batteries (LMBs) were recently proposed as cheap large scale energy storage. Such devices are urgently required for balancing highly fluctuating renewable energy sources. During discharge, intermetallic phases tend to form in…
Metasurfaces, composed of subwavelength electromagnetic microstructures, known as meta-atoms, are capable of reshaping the wavefronts of incident beams in desired manners, making them great candidates for revolutionizing conventional…