Sideways self-propulsion of Janus rods*

The sideways self-propulsion behaviour of Janus rods will be presented [1-2]. Janus rods are prepared by consecutively sputter-coating platinum and gold on different sides of aligned polystyrene nano/micro-fibers produced via electrospinning. Self-propulsion is induced via the reaction of hydrogen peroxide at the Janus particle interface, and the effect of the particles shape on their self-propulsion trajectories is studied. We show that the self-propulsion trajectories change from straight to circular when the particle shape is changed from a straight to an ‘L’ shaped rod. In order to understand and quantitatively describe the particle shape effects, we have adopted a mathematical model developed by Hagen et al [3] to predict their trajectories. We show that the trajectory of irregularly shaped rods depends only on the particle shape. The predicted trajectories for various particle shapes are in good agreement with the experimental observations. We show that these sideways self-propulsion rods are effective in cargo transportation.

References
1. Reddy, N.K. et al., J. Mater. Chem. C, 1, 3646 (2013).
2. Dugyala, V.R. et al., J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys, accepted (2018).
3. ten Hagen, B. et al J., Phys. Condens. Matter 23, 194119 1–12 (2011).