English

Active particles powered by Quincke rotation in a bulk fluid

Soft Condensed Matter 2019-06-05 v1 Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

Dielectric particles suspended in a weakly conducting fluid are known to spontaneously start rotating under the action of a sufficiently strong uniform DC electric field due to the Quincke rotation instability. This rotation can be converted into translation when the particles are placed near a surface providing useful model systems for active matter. Using a combination of numerical simulations and theoretical models, we demonstrate that it is possible to convert this spontaneous Quincke rotation into spontaneous translation in a plane perpendicular to the electric field in the absence of surfaces by relying on geometrical asymmetry instead.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1904.10855,
  title  = {Active particles powered by Quincke rotation in a bulk fluid},
  author = {Debasish Das and Eric Lauga},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.10855},
  year   = {2019}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T08:48:25.384Z