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Active colloids self-organise to a variety of collective states, ranging from highly motile 'molecules' to complex 3D structures. Using large-scale simulations, we show that hydrodynamic interactions, together with a gravity-like aligning…
Understanding the out-of-equilibrium properties of noisy microscale systems and the extent to which they can be modulated externally, is a crucial scientific and technological challenge. It holds the promise to unlock disruptive new…
We describe a method for programming the autonomous navigation of active colloidal particles in response to spatial gradients in a scalar stimulus. Functional behaviors such as positive or negative chemotaxis are encoded in the particle…
The fabrication of nanomaterials involves self-ordering processes of functional molecules on inorganic surfaces. To obtain specific molecular arrangements, a common strategy is to equip molecules with functional groups. However, focusing on…
A droplet bouncing on a liquid bath can self-propel due to its interaction with the waves it generates. The resulting "walker" is a dynamical association where, at a macroscopic scale, a particle (the droplet) is driven by a pilot-wave…
Machines enabled the Industrial Revolution and are central to modern technological progress: A machine's parts transmit forces, motion, and energy to one another in a predetermined manner. Today's engineering frontier, building artificial…
Active swarms, consisting of individual agents which consume energy to move or produce work, are known to generate a diverse range of collective behaviors. Many examples of active swarms are biological in nature (e.g., fish shoals and bird…
There has been unprecedented interest in developing agents that expand the boundary of scientific discovery, primarily by optimizing quantitative objective functions specified by scientists. However, for grand challenges in science, these…
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…
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…
Active networks made of biopolymers and motor proteins are valuable bioinspired systems that have been used in the last decades to study the cytoskeleton and its self-organization under mechanical stimulation. Different techniques are…
Equilibrium self-assembly and conventional materials processing techniques fall far short of mimicking dynamic self-actuating processes that are commonplace throughout biology. To bridge the gap between living and synthetic matter, we study…
The ability to design artificial micro/nanomachines able to perform sophisticated tasks crucially depends on the understanding of their interaction with biosystems and their compatibility with the biological environment. Here, Janus…
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…
Active networks composed of biopolymers and motor proteins provide versatile biomimetic systems that have advanced active matter physics and deepened our understanding of cytoskeletal dynamics and self-organization under diverse stimuli. In…
Membranes are ubiquitous in nature with primary functions that include adaptive filtering and selective transport of chemical and molecular species. Being critical to cellular functions, they are also fundamental in many areas of science…
We view Digital Ecosystems to be the digital counterparts of biological ecosystems, which are considered to be robust, self-organising and scalable architectures that can automatically solve complex, dynamic problems. So, this work is…
Cells control the size and organization of biomolecular condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), but multiple mechanisms likely contribute to this control and remain to be fully elucidated. Here we propose a…
Biological systems exhibit large-scale self-organized dynamics and structures which enable organisms to perform the functions of life. The field of active matter strives to develop and understand microscopically-driven nonequilibrium…
Immotile microbes inhabit nearly every environment on Earth, from soils and sediments to food matrices -- yet how they disperse through these physically confining environments is poorly understood. Here, we show that immotile microbial…