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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik
DY 16: Droplets, Wetting, and Microfluidics (joint session DY/CPP)
DY 16.4: Vortrag
Montag, 9. März 2026, 15:45–16:00, ZEU/0118
Reaction-Mediated Arrest and Gradient-Driven Droplet Transport — •Stefan Köstler1,2, Yicheng Qiang1, Malcolm Steen1,2, Guido Kusters1, and David Zwicker1 — 1Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Am Faßberg 17, 37077 Göttingen, Germany — 2University of Göttingen, Institute for the Dynamics of Complex Systems, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
Controlling droplet size and position is central to many biological and engineering processes. Chemical reactions can arrest coarsening and sustain spatial concentration gradients, while hydrodynamic flows generally accelerate coarsening and drive droplets along chemical gradients. Using continuum theory, we show that the competition between reactions, diffusion, and hydrodynamic advection yields rich behavior even in binary systems: Advection dominates the coalescence of small droplets, diffusion leads to Ostwald ripening for intermediate sizes, and reactions finally suppress coarsening. Interestingly, a range of droplet sizes is stable, depending on initial conditions and the strength of advection. Crucially, chemical gradients can actively steer droplets and couple to size-control. Our results demonstrate practical routes to control both the size distribution and spatial organization of droplets by tuning chemical activity and gradient-driven flows.
Keywords: active droplets; phase separation; chemical reactions; hydrodynamics