Related papers: Designing phoretic micro- and nano-swimmers
We review recent work on active colloids or swimmers, such as self-propelled microorganisms, phoretic colloidal particles, and artificial micro-robotic systems, moving in fluid-like environments. These environments can be water-like and…
Microswimmers and active colloids often move in confined systems, including those involving interfaces. Such interfaces, especially at the microscale, may deform in response to the stresses of the flow created by the active particle. We…
Many eukaryotic cells use the active waving motion of flexible flagella to self-propel in viscous fluids. However, the criteria governing the selection of particular flagellar waveforms among all possible shapes has proved elusive so far.…
We derive and numerically solve a surface active nematodynamics model. We validate the numerical approach on a sphere and analyse the influence of hydrodynamics on the oscillatory motion of topological defects. For ellipsoidal surfaces the…
The swimming trajectories of self-propelled organisms or synthetic devices in a viscous fluid can be altered by hydrodynamic interactions with nearby boundaries. We explore a multipole description of swimming bodies and provide a general…
Many biological fluids are composed of suspended polymers immersed in a viscous fluid. A prime example is mucus, where the polymers are also known to form a network. While the presence of this microstructure is linked with an overall…
In this work, we analyze the motion of an active particle, modeled as a spherical squirmer, in linearly varying viscosity fields. In general, the presence of a particle will disturb a background viscosity field and the disturbance generated…
The swimming of a spheroid immersed in a viscous fluid and performing surface deformations periodically in time is studied on the basis of Stokes equations of low Reynolds number hydrodynamics. The average over a period of time of the…
Through billions of years of evolution, microorganisms mastered unique swimming behaviors to thrive in complex fluid environments. Limitations in nanofabrication have thus far hindered the ability to design and program synthetic swimmers…
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…
We present an experimental study of the statistical properties of millimeter-size spheres floating on the surface of a turbulent flow. The flow is generated in a layer of liquid metal by an electromagnetic forcing. By using two magnet…
Symmetry breaking is essential for biological microswimmers to achieve locomotion in viscous environments. Such asymmetry in the swimming mechanism enables the generation of directional forces that overcome fluid resistance, leading to…
Microorganism motility often takes place within complex, viscoelastic fluid environments, e.g., sperm in cervicovaginal mucus and bacteria in biofilms. In such complex fluids, strains and stresses generated by the microorganism are stored…
Recent findings of possible applications of bio-friendly synthetic self-phoretic swimmers, have motivated the researchers in investigating the various motion-generating mechanisms to optimize the operating characteristics of the same. In…
Swimming is ubiquitous in nature and crucial for the survival of a wide range of organisms. The physics of swimming at the viscosity-dominated microscale and inertia-dominated macroscale is well studied. However, in between lies a…
The hydrodynamic flow field generated by self-propelled active particles and swimming microorganisms is strongly altered by the presence of nearby boundaries in a viscous flow. Using a simple model three-linked sphere swimmer, we show that…
For natural microswimmers, the interplay of swimming activity and external flow can promote robust motion, e.g. propulsion against ("upstream rheotaxis") or perpendicular to the direction of flow. These effects are generally attributed to…
Simple models are used throughout the physical sciences as a means of developing intuition, capturing phenomenology, and qualitatively reproducing observations. In studies of microswimming, simple force-dipole models are commonplace,…
We consider phoretic self-propulsion of a chemically active colloid where solute is consumed at both the colloid boundary and within the bulk solution. Assuming first-order kinetics, the dimensionless transport problem is governed by the…
We propose and analyze a simple model for the evolution of an immersed, inextensible filament which incorporates linear viscoelastic effects of the surrounding fluid. The model is a closed-form system of equations along the curve only which…