Related papers: Self-reconfiguring colloidal active matter
Living systems routinely consume energy to achieve motility, often using intricate biomolecular machinery. In this work, we show that active droplets can sustain indefinite self-propulsion of a spherical colloid in an otherwise homogeneous,…
The emergence of structure through aggregation is a fascinating topic and of both fundamental and practical interest. Here we demonstrate that self-generated solvent flow can be used to generate long-range attractions on the colloidal…
Colloidal particles dispersed in liquid crystals can form new materials with tunable elastic and electro-optic properties. In a periodic `blue phase' host, particles should template into colloidal crystals with potential uses in photonics,…
Active systems, from bacterial suspensions to cellular monolayers, are continuously driven out of equilibrium by local injection of energy from their constituent elements and exhibit turbulent-like and chaotic patterns. Here we demonstrate…
We theoretically study mixtures of chemically-interacting particles, which produce or consume a chemical to which they are attracted or repelled, in the most general case of many coexisting species. We find a new class of active phase…
Adaptive control in biological systems, such as intestinal immunity, remains poorly understood despite detailed knowledge of underlying regulatory networks. We propose an alternative framework based on stochastic martingale turnover, in…
Recent 3D organ reconstitution studies show that a group of stem cells can establish a body axis and acquire different fates in a spatially organized manner. How such symmetry breaking happens in the absence of external spatial cues, and…
A common feature of biological self-organization is how active agents communicate with each other or their environment via chemical signaling. Such communications, mediated by self-generated chemical gradients, have consequences for both…
Numerous problems in development, regeneration, and disease involve simultaneous evolution of both spatial organization and the internal state of the constituents in addition to local interactions and crowding. This motivates us to study a…
Flexibility governs the many properties of materials and is crucial for the function of proteins and biopolymers. However, how the self-assembly of flexibly bonded particles can lead to larger structures with global reconfigurability is…
We present a simple chemical strategy for the formation of a self-propelling cluster via the process of capture and assembly of passive colloids on the surface of a chemically active colloid. The two species of colloids that are isotropic…
Control of physical behaviors of nematic colloids and colloidal crystals has been demonstrated by tuning particle shape, topology, chirality and surface charging. However, the capability of altering physical behaviors of such soft matter…
Molecular motors are essential to the living, they generate additional fluctuations that boost transport and assist assembly. Self-propelled colloids, that consume energy to move, hold similar potential for the man-made assembly of…
Colloidal particles can spontaneously self-assemble into ordered structures, which not only can manipulate the propagation of light, but also vibration or phonons. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we study the self-assembly of perfectly…
Exploiting the energy of randomly moving active agents such as bacteria is a fascinating way to power a microdevice. Here we show, by simulations, that a chain-grafted disk-like colloid can rotate unidirectionally when immersed in a thin…
Fractionation is necessary for self-assembly in multicomponent mixtures. Here, reversible fractionation and crystallization are realized and studied in a two-dimensional binary colloids which is supersaturated by enhancing the attraction…
We consider a phase-separating mixture of active and passive fluids and explore morphological asymmetries of the emerging dominantly bicontinous dynamic emulsion. Two-dimensional numerical simulations reveal that the geometric and…
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…
Over the past decade, autophoretic colloids have emerged as a prototypical system for studying self-propelled motion at microscopic scales, with promising applications in microfluidics, micromachinery, and therapeutics. Their motion in a…
Adding a non-adsorbing polymer to passive colloids induces an attraction between the particles via the `depletion' mechanism. High enough polymer concentrations lead to phase separation. We combine experiments, theory and simulations to…