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Confined Catalytic Janus Swimmers in a Crowded Channel: Geometry-Driven Rectification Transients and Directional Locking
HL. Yu, A. Kopach, VR. Misko, AA. Vasylenko, D. Makarov, F. Marchesoni, F. Nori, L. Baraban, G. Cuniberti
Small 12, 5882 (2016)
Self-propelled Janus particles, acting as microscopic vehicles, have the potential to perform complex tasks on a microscopic scale, suitable, e.g., for environmental applications, on-chip chemical information processing, or in vivo drug delivery. Development of these smart nanodevices requires a better understanding of how synthetic swimmers move in crowded and confined environments that mimic actual biosystems, e.g., network of blood vessels. Here, the dynamics of self-propelled Janus particles interacting with catalytically passive silica beads in a narrow channel is studied both experimentally and through numerical simulations. Upon varying the area density of the silica beads and the width of the channel, active transport reveals a number of intriguing properties, which range from distinct bulk and boundary-free diffusivity at low densities, to directional "locking" and channel "unclogging" at higher densities, whereby a Janus swimmer is capable of transporting large clusters of passive particles.
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