Related papers: Self-propelled particles driven by light
Light carries energy and momentum. It can therefore alter the motion of objects from atomic to astronomical scales. Being widely available, readily controllable and broadly biocompatible, light is also an ideal tool to propel microscopic…
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 introduce a system of light driven microscopic autonomous moving particles that move on a flat surface. The design is simple, yet effective: Micrometer sized objects with wedge shape are produced by photopolymerization, they are covered…
Active colloidal microparticles require reliable actuation to sustain directed motion. Light-based propulsion is particularly attractive as it provides persistent energy supply and enables direct spatiotemporal control. Here, we introduce…
Active matter comprises self-driven units, such as bacteria and synthetic microswimmers, that can spontaneously form complex patterns and assemble into functional microdevices. These processes are possible thanks to the out-of-equilibrium…
A theory of self-propelled particles is developed in two dimensions assuming that the particles can be deformed from a circular shape when the propagating velocity is increased. A coupled set of equations in terms of the velocity and a…
Micron-sized particles moving through solution in response to self-generated chemical gradients serve as model systems for studying active matter. Their far-reaching potential applications will require the particles to sense and respond to…
Many active particles, both of biological and synthetic origin, can have a light controllable propulsion speed, a property that in biology is commonly referred to as photokinesis. Here we investigate directed transport of photokinetic…
The diffusion of active microscopic organisms in complex environments plays an important role in a wide range of biological phenomena from cell colony growth to single organism transport. Here, we investigate theoretically and…
Differently from passive Brownian particles, active particles, also known as self-propelled Brownian particles or microswimmers and nanoswimmers, are capable of taking up energy from their environment and converting it into directed motion.…
Robotic materials are multi-robot systems formulated to leverage the low-order computation and actuation of the constituents to manipulate the high-order behavior of the entire material. We study the behaviors of ensembles composed of smart…
We report numerical results which show the achievement of net transport of self-propelled particles (SPP) in the presence of a two-dimensional regular array of convex, either symmetric or asymmetric, rigid obstacles. The repulsive…
In addition to self-propulsion by phoretic mechanisms that arises from an asymmetric distribution of reactive species around a catalytic motor, spherical particles with a uniform distribution of catalytic activity may also propel themselves…
The term active matter describes diverse systems, spanning macroscopic (e.g. shoals of fish and flocks of birds) to microscopic scales (e.g. migrating cells, motile bacteria and gels formed through the interaction of nanoscale molecular…
The refraction of light by dispersion-free dielectric media can be modeled using well-localized macroscopic wave packets, enabling a description in terms of pseudo-particles. This approach is often used in thought experiments to illustrate…
Surface-driven flows are ubiquitous in nature, from subcellular cytoplasmic streaming to organ-scale ciliary arrays. Here, we model how confined geometries can be used to engineer complex hydrodynamic patterns driven by activity prescribed…
Biological molecules, like all active matter, use free energy to generate force and motion which drive them out of thermal equilibrium, and undergo inherent dynamic interconversion between metastable free energy states separated by levels…
The quintessential hallmark distinguishing metasurfaces from traditional optical components is the engineering of subwavelength meta-atoms to manipulate light at will. Enabling this freedom, in a reverse manner, to control objects…
We consider sedimented at a solid wall particles that are immersed in water containing small additives of photosensitive ionic surfactants. It is shown that illumination with an appropriate wavelength, a beam intensity profile, shape and…
We investigate the possibility for self-propelled particles to crystallize without reducing their intrinsic speed. We illuminate how, in the absence of any force, the competition between self-propulsion and repulsive torques determine the…