Propulsion with a Rotating Elastic Nanorod

Abstract

The dynamics of a rotating elastic filament is investigated using Stokesian simulations. The filament, straight and tilted with respect to its rotation axis for small driving torques, undergoes at a critical torque a strongly discontinuous shape bifurcation to a helical state. It induces a substantial forward propulsion whatever the sense of rotation: a nanomechanical force-rectification device is established.

4 pages, 3 figures, to be published in Physical Review Letters

References in corpus (4)

• Flexive and Propulsive Dynamics of Elastica at Low Reynolds Numbers
• Self-organized Beating and Swimming of Internally Driven Filaments
• A macroscopic scale model of bacterial flagellar bundling
• Twirling and Whirling: Viscous Dynamics of Rotating Elastica

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