Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2018
Volume 63, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 5–9, 2018; Los Angeles, California
Session R57: Active Matter I
8:00 AM–11:00 AM,
Thursday, March 8, 2018
LACC
Room: 518
Sponsoring
Units:
GSOFT DBIO GSNP
Chair: Enkeleida Lushi, Simons Foundation
Abstract ID: BAPS.2018.MAR.R57.15
Abstract: R57.00015 : Hierarchical Self-Assembly of Spinning Microgears*
10:48 AM–11:00 AM
Presenter:
Antoine Aubret
(Physics, University of California San Diego)
Authors:
Antoine Aubret
(Physics, University of California San Diego)
Mena Youssef
(Chemistry, New York University)
Stefano Sacanna
(Chemistry, New York University)
Jeremie Palacci
(Physics, University of California San Diego)
Our experiment relies on the control of two ingredients: proper design of the individual building blocks, and their response to environmental stimuli. The first building block in our study is a piece of photocatalytic material. Under illumination, it consumes the fuel available in the solution. We use this effect to engineer phototactic swimmers, attracted to the region of high illumination. From this, we use light as an environmental cue to guide the swimmers to form robust and highly persistent microgears. We use them as new building blocks and address the multiple rotors dynamics. We specifically address the case of a pair, and show that the microgears move collectively or synchronize. This results from the interactions between the anisotropic chemical clouds of each rotors. Increasing the number of gears (N = 7), we form an active crystal which can rotate, re-organize, and change shape, depending on its internal constitution and light environment.
Our work is an important step toward the creation of artificial systems that mimic biological organization on large scales.
*This work is supported by NSF CAREER DMR 1554724
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2018.MAR.R57.15
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