Berlin 2018 – scientific programme

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 31: Microswimmers DY II (joint session DY/CPP/BP)

BP 31.9: Talk

Thursday, March 15, 2018, 12:15–12:30, BH-N 243

Modular microswimmers formed by ion-exchange particles — •Andreas Fischer, Ran Niu, Thomas Palberg, and Thomas Speck — Institut für Physik, Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany

Colloidal ion exchange particles generate solvent flow due to a combination of electroosmosis and electrophoresis, which induces long-range attractive interactions between the colloidal particles [1]. These interactions lead to the formation of colloidal "molecules" of varying size and structure. By breaking reciprocality, these molecules can be made active. Depending on their composition, we observe passively diffusing, linearly and circularly moving molecules with different propulsion velocities. We develop a model based on conservative interactions, which makes quantitative predictions about the swimmers' motion that we compare to the experimental results.