Self-assembly of Active Colloidal Molecules with Dynamic Function

Abstract

Catalytically active colloids maintain non-equilibrium conditions in which they produce and deplete chemicals and hence effectively act as sources and sinks of molecules. While individual colloids that are symmetrically coated do not exhibit any form of dynamical activity, the concentration fields resulting from their chemical activity decay as $1/r$ and produce gradients that attract or repel other colloids depending on their surface chemistry and ambient variables. This results in a non-equilibrium analogue of ionic systems, but with the remarkable novel feature of action-reaction symmetry breaking. We study solutions of such chemically active colloids in dilute conditions when they join up to form molecules via generalized ionic bonds, and discuss how we can achieve structures with time dependent functionality. In particular, we study a molecule that adopts a spontaneous oscillatory pattern of conformations, and another that exhibits a run-and-tumble dynamics similar to bacteria. Our study shows that catalytically active colloids could be used for designing self-assembled structures that posses dynamical functionalities that are determined by their prescribed 3D structures, a strategy that follows the design principle of proteins.

References in corpus (19)

• Self-motile colloidal particles: from directed propulsion to random walk
• Electrostatic correlations: from Plasma to Biology
• Propulsion of a molecular machine by asymmetric distribution of reaction--products
• Designing phoretic micro- and nano-swimmers
• Auditory Sensitivity Provided by Self-tuned Critical Oscillations of Hair Cells
• Clusters, asters and collective oscillations in chemotactic colloids
• Self-assembly of catalytically active colloidal molecules: Tailoring activity through surface chemistry
• Spontaneous autophoretic motion of isotropic particles
• Spontaneous Oscillations of Collective Molecular Motors
• Anomalous Diffusion of Symmetric and Asymmetric Active Colloids
• High-Speed Propulsion of Flexible Nanowire Motors: Theory and Experiments
• Theory of activated-rate processes under shear with application to shear-induced aggregation of colloids
• Emergent comet-like swarming of optically driven thermally active colloids
• Chemistry in Motion: Tiny Synthetic Motors
• Pulling and Pushing a Cargo With a Catalytically Active Carrier
• Emergent Run-and-Tumble Behavior in a Simple Model of Chlamydomonas with Intrinsic Noise
• Efficiency of surface-driven motion: nano-swimmers beat micro-swimmers
• Collective beating of artificial microcilia
• Oscillations in molecular motor assemblies

Cited by in corpus (46)

• Active Particles in Complex and Crowded Environments
• Emergent behavior in active colloids
• 'Fuelled' motion: phoretic motility and collective behaviour of active colloids
• Active phase separation in mixtures of chemically interacting particles
• Minimal model of active colloids highlights the role of mechanical interactions in controlling the emergent behavior of active matter
• Light-controlled Assembly of Active Colloidal Molecules
• Pairing, waltzing and scattering of chemotactic active colloids
• Generic long-range interactions between passive bodies in an active fluid
• Self-assembly of colloidal molecules due to self-generated flow
• Active Colloidal Molecules
• Fission and fusion scenarios for magnetic microswimmer clusters
• Exact phoretic interaction of two chemically-active particles
• Interactions in Active Colloids
• Phoretic and hydrodynamic interactions of weakly-confined autophoretic particles
• Self-organization of primitive metabolic cycles due to non-reciprocal interactions
• Active dipole clusters: from helical motion to fission
• Vortex dynamics and Lagrangian statistics in a model for active turbulence
• Non-equilibrium phase separation in mixtures of catalytically active particles: size dispersity and screening effects
• Nonreciprocal interactions give rise to fast cilium synchronisation in finite systems
• Dynamics of a linear magnetic "microswimmer molecule"
• Fore-aft asymmetric flocking
• Emerging activity in bilayered dispersions with wake-mediated interactions
• Defect Solutions of the Non-reciprocal Cahn-Hilliard Model: Spirals and Targets
• Bodies in an Interacting Active Fluid: Far-Field Influence of a Single Body and Interaction Between Two Bodies
• Hydrochemical interactions of phoretic particles: a regularized multipole framework
• Clustering-induced velocity-reversals of active colloids mixed with passive particles
• Structural correlations in diffusiophoretic colloidal mixtures with nonreciprocal interactions
• Chemically active colloids near osmotic-responsive walls with surface-chemistry gradients
• Diffusiophoretic propulsion of an isotropic active colloidal particle near a finite-sized disk embedded in a planar fluid-fluid interface
• Interaction-motif-based classification of self-organizing metabolic cycles
• Particle Entity in the Doi-Peliti and Response Field Formalisms
• GPU parallel simulation algorithm of Brownian particles with excluded volume using Delaunay triangulations
• Impact of non-reciprocal interactions on colloidal self-assembly with tunable anisotropy
• Continuous-time multifarious systems -- Part I: equilibrium multifarious self-assembly
• Stability of interlocked self-propelled dumbbell clusters
• Minimal mechanism for flocking in phoretically interacting active particles
• Self-organization of active colloids mediated by chemical interactions
• Simple mathematical model for a pairing-induced motion of active and passive particles
• Continuous-time multifarious systems -- Part II: non-reciprocal multifarious self-organization
• Regimes of motion of magnetocapillary swimmers
• Island Hopping of active colloids
• Demixing of two species via reciprocally concentration-dependent diffusivity
• Clustering-induced self-propulsion of isotropic autophoretic particles
• Flocking transition in phoretically interacting active particles with pinning disorder
• Non-reciprocal interactions between condensates in chemically active mixtures
• State Diagram of the Non-Reciprocal Cahn-Hilliard Model and the Effects of Symmetry