Self-Motile Colloidal Particles: From Directed Propulsion to Random Walk

Jonathan R. Howse; Richard A L Jones; Anthony J. Ryan; Tim Gough; Reza Vafabakhsh; Ramin Golestanian

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.048102

Self-Motile Colloidal Particles: From Directed Propulsion to Random Walk

Jonathan R. Howse^*, Richard A L Jones, Anthony J. Ryan, Tim Gough, Reza Vafabakhsh, Ramin Golestanian

^*Corresponding author for this work

Molecular Biosciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1472 Scopus citations

Abstract

The motion of an artificial microscale swimmer that uses a chemical reaction catalyzed on its own surface to achieve autonomous propulsion is fully characterized experimentally. It is shown that at short times it has a substantial component of directed motion, with a velocity that depends on the concentration of fuel molecules. At longer times, the motion reverts to a random walk with a substantially enhanced diffusion coefficient. Our results suggest strategies for designing artificial chemotactic systems.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	048102
Journal	Physical review letters
Volume	99
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.048102
State	Published - Jul 27 2007

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Physics and Astronomy(all)

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10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.048102

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Self-Motile Colloidal Particles: From Directed Propulsion to Random Walk

Abstract

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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