Activity-assisted barrier-crossing of self-propelled colloids over parallel microgrooves

Abstract

We report a systematic study of the dynamics of self-propelled particles (SPPs) over a one-dimensional periodic potential landscape, which is fabricated on a microgroove-patterned polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate. From the measured non-equilibrium probability density function of the SPPs, we find that the escape dynamics of the slow-rotating SPPs across the potential landscape can be described by an effective potential, once the self-propulsion force is included into the potential under the fixed angle approximation. This work demonstrates that the parallel microgrooves provide a versatile platform for a quantitative understanding of the interplay among the self-propulsion force, spatial confinement by the potential landscape, and thermal noise, as well as its effects on activity-assisted escape dynamics and transport of the SPPs.

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Depinning transition of self-propelled particles
• Two-Dimensional Active Brownian Particles Crossing a Parabolic Barrier: Finite Rectangular Domain with Absorbing Boundary Conditions