Related papers: Gating and tunable confinement of active colloids …
It is well known that periodic potentials can be used to induce freezing and melting in colloids. Here, we transfer this concept to active systems and find the emergence of a so-far unknown active matter phase in between the frozen…
Collective motion is ubiquitous in active systems at all length and time scales. The mechanisms behind such collective motion usually are alignment interactions between active particles, effective alignment after collisions between agents…
A heterogeneous and dilute suspension of catalytically active colloids is studied as a non-equilibrium analogue of ionic systems, which has the remarkable feature of action-reaction symmetry breaking. Symmetrically coated colloids are found…
We investigate a trapping mechanism for passive Brownian particles based on mixtures with self-propelled dipolar colloids. Active dipoles, whose magnetic moment is oriented perpendicularly to their propulsion direction, spontaneously form…
Field induced assembly of reconfigurable structures with complex hierarchical configurations has recently become an area of intense research with the promise for exciting applications in programmable self-assembly and nano/microstructure…
We use confocal microscopy to study the motions of particles in concentrated colloidal systems. Near the glass transition, diffusive motion is inhibited, as particles spend time trapped in transient ``cages'' formed by neighboring…
Above a certain density a granular material jams. This property can be controlled by either tuning a global property, such as the packing fraction or by applying shear strain, or at the micro-scale by tuning grain shape, inter-particle…
Following the goal of using active particles as targeted cargo carriers aimed, for example, to deliver drugs towards cancer cells, the quest for the control of individual active particles with external fields is among the most explored…
At sufficiently low temperatures and high densities, repulsive spherical particles in two-dimensions (2d) form close-packed structures with six-fold symmetry. By contrast, when the interparticle interaction has an attractive anisotropic…
Colloidal systems find important applications ranging from fabrication of photonic crystals to direct probing of phenomena typically encountered in atomic crystals and glasses. New applications - such as nanoantennas, plasmonic sensors, 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…
We investigate how the competing presence of a nonuniform motility landscape and an external confining field affects the properties of active particles. We employ the active Ornstein-Uhlenbeck particle (AOUP) model with a periodic swim…
The past two decades have seen a remarkable progress in the development of synthetic colloidal agents which are capable of creating directed motion in an unbiased environment at the microscale. These self-propelling particles are often…
Via mechanisms not accessible at equilibrium, self-propelled particles can form phases with positional order, such as crystals, and with orientational order, such as polar flocks. However, the interplay between these two types of order…
We study the effects of the optical binding force on wavelength sized colloidal particles free to move in a counter-propagating beam. This work is motivated by the concept of using optical binding to direct the assembly of large numbers of…
We present experiments on chiral active polar particles, realized as vibrated granular rods, revealing the formation of robust ``skipping orbits'' at hard boundaries. These edge states exhibit a net circulation opposite to the particles'…
Light-activated self-propelled colloids are synthesized and their active motion is studied using optical microscopy. We propose a versatile route using different photoactive materials, and demonstrate a multiwavelength activation and…
We show that the interaction of an oil-dispersed colloidal particle with an oil-water interface is highly tunable from attractive to repulsive, either by varying the sign of the colloidal charge via charge regulation, or by varying the…
Controlling the motion of active matter is a central issue that has recently garnered significant attention in fields ranging from non-equilibrium physics to chemical engineering and biology. Distinct methods for controlling active matter…
The transport of active particles may occur in complex environments, in which it emerges from the interplay between the mobility of the active components and the quenched disorder of the environment. Here we explore structural and dynamical…