Ångström-scale chemically powered motors

Abstract

Like their larger micron-scale counterparts, Ångström-scale chemically self-propelled motors use asymmetric catalytic activity to produce self-generated concentration gradients that lead to directed motion. Unlike their micron-scale counterparts, the sizes of Ångström-scale motors are comparable to the solvent molecules in which they move, they are dominated by fluctuations, and they operate on very different time scales. These new features are studied using molecular dynamics simulations of small sphere dimer motors. We show that the ballistic regime is dominated by the thermal speed but the diffusion coefficients of these motors are orders of magnitude larger than inactive dimers. Such small motors may find applications in nano-confined systems or perhaps eventually in the cell.

6 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Propulsion of a molecular machine by asymmetric distribution of reaction--products
• A Classical Density-Functional Theory for Describing Water Interfaces
• Phoretic Motion of Spheroidal Particles Due To Self-Generated Solute Gradients
• Pulling and Pushing a Cargo With a Catalytically Active Carrier

Cited by in corpus (10)

• Emergent behavior in active colloids
• Chemistry in Motion: Tiny Synthetic Motors
• Microscopic and continuum descriptions of Janus motor fluid flow fields
• Role of viscoelasticity on the dynamics and aggregation of chemically active sphere-dimers
• Simulation of microswimmer hydrodynamics with multiparticle collision dynamics
• Molecular theory of Langevin dynamics for active self-diffusiophoretic colloids
• Nanoconfined catalytic Ångström-size motors
• Microscopic theory of a Janus motor in a non-equilibrium fluid: Surface hydrodynamics and boundary conditions
• Langevin equations and a geometric integration scheme for the overdamped limit of rotational Brownian motion of axisymmetric particles
• Autonomous Brownian motor driven by nonadiabatic variation of internal parameters