Dynamic self-assembly of microscale rotors and swimmers

Abstract

Biological systems often involve the self-assembly of basic components into complex and function- ing structures. Artificial systems that mimic such processes can provide a well-controlled setting to explore the principles involved and also synthesize useful micromachines. Our experiments show that immotile, but active, components self-assemble into two types of structure that exhibit the fundamental forms of motility: translation and rotation. Specifically, micron-scale metallic rods are designed to induce extensile surface flows in the presence of a chemical fuel; these rods interact with each other and pair up to form either a swimmer or a rotor. Such pairs can transition reversibly be- tween these two configurations, leading to kinetics reminiscent of bacterial run-and-tumble motion.

arXiv comment5 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (28)

• Memory-induced transition from a persistent random walk to circular motion for achiral microswimmers
• Activity induced synchronization: From Mutual Flocking to Chiral Self-Sorting
• Hydrodynamics of Suspensions of Passive and Active Rigid Particles: A Rigid Multiblob Approach
• Analytical structure, dynamics, and coarse-graining of a kinetic model of an active fluid
• Active Colloidal Molecules
• Fission and fusion scenarios for magnetic microswimmer clusters
• Universal hydrodynamic mechanisms for crystallization in active colloidal suspensions
• Simultaneous Phase Separation and Pattern Formation in Chiral Active Mixtures
• Collective forces in scalar active matter
• Activity-Enhanced Self-Assembly of a Colloidal Kagome Lattice
• Brownian Dynamics of Confined Suspensions of Active Microrollers
• Dynamical density functional theory for circle swimmers
• Designing, Synthesizing and Modeling Active Fluids
• Activity-assisted self-assembly of colloidal particles
• Microtransformers: controlled microscale navigation with flexible robots
• Active fluids at circular boundaries: Swim pressure and anomalous droplet ripening
• Diffusiophoretic design of self-spinning microgears from colloidal microswimmers
• Universal reshaping of arrested colloidal gels via active doping
• A fast Chebyshev method for the Bingham closure with application to active nematic suspensions
• Defect dynamics in active smectics induced by confining geometry and topology
• The near and far of a pair of magnetic capillary disks
• Mesoscopic simulations of anisotropic chemically-powered nanomotors
• Spontaneous chiralization of polar active colloids
• A Barrier Method for Contact Avoiding Particles in Stokes Flow
• Active dipolar spheroids in shear flow and transverse field: Population splitting, cross-stream migration and orientational pinning
• Chirality Reversing Active Brownian Motion in Two Dimensions
• Spiral folding of a flexible chain of chiral active particles
• Chiral Active Matter