Tuning the random walk of active colloids

Abstract

Active particles such as swimming bacteria or self-propelled colloids are known to spontaneously organize into fascinating large-scale dynamic structures. The emergence of these collective states from the motility pattern of the individual particles, typically a random walk, is yet to be probed in a well-defined synthetic system. Here, we report the experimental realization of intermittent colloidal motion that reproduces the run-and-tumble and Levy trajectories common to many swimming and swarming bacteria. Our strategy enables to tailor the sequence of repeated "runs" (nearly constant-speed straight-line translation) and "tumbles" (seemingly erratic turn) to emulate any random walk. This new paradigm for active locomotion at the microscale opens new opportunities for experimental explorations of the collective dynamics emerging in active suspensions. We find that population of these random walkers exhibit behaviors reminiscent of bacterial suspensions such as dynamic clusters and mesoscale turbulent-like flows.

References in corpus (32)

• Active Particles in Complex and Crowded Environments
• Self-motile colloidal particles: from directed propulsion to random walk
• Physics of Microswimmers - Single Particle Motion and Collective Behavior
• Emergence of macroscopic directed motion in populations of motile colloids
• Meso-scale turbulence in living fluids
• Active Motion of Janus Particle by Self-thermophoresis in Defocused Laser Beam
• Lévy walks
• Fluid dynamics of bacterial turbulence
• Induced-charge Electrophoresis of Metallo-dielectric Particles
• Bacterial hydrodynamics
• Emergent behavior in active colloids
• Active Brownian Motion Tunable by Light
• Collective motion and nonequilibrium cluster formation in colonies of gliding bacteria
• Adaptive locomotion of artificial microswimmers
• Emergent vortices in populations of colloidal rollers
• 'Fuelled' motion: phoretic motility and collective behaviour of active colloids
• Dynamic clustering and chemotactic collapse of self-phoretic active particles
• Distortion and destruction of colloidal flocks in disordered environments
• Dynamics of self-propelled Janus particles in viscoelastic fluids
• Active colloids in liquid crystals
• Memory-induced transition from a persistent random walk to circular motion for achiral microswimmers
• Vortex arrays and meso-scale turbulence of self-propelled particles
• The topography of the environment alters the optimal search strategy for active particles
• Optimal run-and-tumble based transportation of a Janus particle with active steering
• Sounds and hydrodynamics of polar active fluids
• Diffusion, subdiffusion and localisation of active colloids in random post lattices
• Self-propulsion mechanism of active Janus particles in near-critical binary mixtures
• Anomalous diffusion in run-and-tumble motion
• Pattern formation in active particle systems due to competing alignment interactions
• Run-and-Tumble-Like Motion of Active Colloids in Viscoelastic Media
• Active particles powered by Quincke rotation in a bulk fluid
• Swimming path statistics of an active Brownian particle with time-dependent self-propulsion

Cited by in corpus (39)

• Active Turbulence
• Universal scaling of active nematic turbulence
• Feedback-Controlled Active Brownian Colloids with Space-Dependent Rotational Dynamics
• Low rattling: A predictive principle for self-organization in active collectives
• Hyperuniform Active Chiral Fluids with Tunable Internal Structure
• Dynamical Crystallites of Active Chiral Particles
• Low-Reynolds-number, bi-flagellated Quincke swimmers with multiple forms of motion
• Guiding self-assembly of active colloids by temporal modulation of activity
• The random walk of intermittently self-propelled particles
• Competing Active and Passive Interactions Drive Amoeba-like Living Crystallites and Ordered Bands
• Swimming suppresses correlations in dilute suspensions of pusher microorganisms
• Scaling regimes of active turbulence with external dissipation
• Flocking in One Dimension: Asters and Reversals
• Swirling due to misaligned perception-dependent motility
• Chirality, anisotropic viscosity and elastic anisotropy in three-dimensional active nematic turbulence
• Characterizing Different Motility Induced Regimes in Active Matter with Machine Learning and Noise
• Crack patterns of drying dense bacterial suspensions
• Collective Motion of Quincke Rollers with Fully Resolved Hydrodynamics
• A novel approach to chemotaxis: active particles guided by internal clocks
• Nonlinear spontaneous flow instability in active nematics
• Particle-surface interactions in a uniform electric field
• Comparison of time reversal symmetric and asymmetric nano-swimmers oriented with an electric field in soft matter
• Transmission of mobility via cooperative mechanisms in soft active matter
• Tunable Memory and Activity of Quincke Particles in Micellar Fluid
• Active colloid with externally induced periodic bipolar motility and its cooperative motion
• Geometric phase methods with Stokes theorem for a general viscous swimmer
• Island Hopping of active colloids
• Micro-swimmer collective dynamics in Brinkman flows
• Electrohydrodynamic flow about a colloidal particle suspended in a non-polar fluid
• Anomalous Dynamics of Superparamagnetic Colloidal Microrobots with Tailored Statistics
• Dynamic phase transition induced by active molecules simulating a facilitation mechanism in a supercooled liquid
• Active stop and go motion: a strategy to improve spatial exploration and survival
• Universality in Incompressible Active Fluid: Effect of Non-local Shear Stress
• Mean first passage times of higher-dimensional velocity jump processes
• Dynamical arrest in active nematic turbulence
• Rolling at right angles: magnetic anisotropy enables dual-anisotropic active matter
• Harnessing confinement and driving to tune active particle dynamics
• Simulation of a flat folding nano-swimmer confined in a nanopore
• Programmable Persistent Random Walks in Active Brownian Particles Govern Emergent Dynamics