Related papers: Propelling catalytic structures using active phase…

Non-equilibrium dynamics of topological defects can be used as a fundamental propulsion mechanism in microscopic active matter. Here, we demonstrate swimming of topological defect-propelled colloidal particles in (passive) nematic fluids…

We propose a mechanism to control the formation of stable obstructions in two-dimensional micro-channels of variable sections taking advantage of the peculiar clustering property of active systems. Under the activation of the…

Current models of phoretic transport rely on molecular forces creating a "diffuse" particle-fluid interface. We investigate theoretically an alternative mechanism, in which a diffuse interface emerges solely due to a non-vanishing…

A simple theoretical approach is used to investigate active colloids at the free interface and near repulsive substrates. We employ dynamical density functional theory to determine the steady-state density profiles in an effective…

Unlike biological active matter that constantly adapt to their environment, the motors of synthetic active particles are typically agnostic to their surroundings and merely operate at constant force. Here, we design colloidal active rods…

We outline a basic strategy of how self-propulsion can be used to improve the yield of a typical colloidal self-assembly process. The success of this approach is predicated on the thoughtful design of the colloidal building block as well as…

The motion of an artificial micro-scale swimmer that uses a chemical reaction catalyzed on its own surface to achieve autonomous propulsion is fully characterized experimentally. It is shown that at short times, it has a substantial…

Designing microscopic and nanoscopic self-propelled particles and characterising their motion has become a major scientific challenge over the past decades. To this purpose, phoretic effects, namely propulsion mechanisms relying on local…

Experimental realizations of self-propelled colloidal Janus particles exploit the conversion of free energy into directed motion. One route are phoretic mechanisms that can be modeled schematically as the interconversion of two chemical…

We use numerical simulations to study the phase behavior of self-propelled spherical and dumbbellar particles interacting via micro-phase separation inducing potentials. Our results indicate that under the appropriate conditions, it is…

Self-diffusiophoretic particles exploit local concentration gradients of a solute species in order to self-propel at the micron scale. While an isolated chemically- and geometrically-isotropic particle cannot swim, we show that it can…

An active colloid is a suspension of particles that transduce free energy from their environment and use the energy to engage in intrinsically non-equilibrium activities such as growth, replication and self-propelled motility. An obvious…

Colloidal particles hold promise for mobilizing and removing trapped immiscible fluids from porous media, with implications for key energy and water applications. Most studies focus on accomplishing this goal using particles that can…

Designing protocols to dynamically direct the self-assembly of colloidal particles has become an important direction in soft matter physics because of the promising applications in fabrication of dynamic responsive functional materials.…

With exquisite precision and reproducibility, cells orchestrate the cooperative action of thousands of nanometer-sized molecular motors to carry out mechanical tasks at much larger length scales, such as cell motility, division and…

Micron-sized self-propelled (active) particles can be considered as model systems for characterizing more complex biological organisms like swimming bacteria or motile cells. We produce asymmetric microswimmers by soft lithography and study…

Many active biological particles, such as swimming microorganisms or motor-proteins, do work on their environment by going though a periodic sequence of shapes. Interactions between particles can lead to the phase-synchronization of their…

While the collective motion of active particles has been studied extensively, effective strategies to navigate particle swarms without external guidance remain elusive. We introduce a method to control the trajectories of two-dimensional…

Various aspects of self-motility of chemically active colloids in Newtonian fluids can be captured by simple models for their chemical activity plus a phoretic slip hydrodynamic boundary condition on their surface. For particles of simple…

In living cells, cycles of formation and dissolution of liquid droplets can mediate biological functions such as DNA repair. However, the minimal physicochemical prerequisite for such droplet oscillations remains elusive. Here, we present a…