Active micromachines: Microfluidics powered by mesoscale turbulence
Sumesh P. Thampi 1,2, Amin Doostmohammadi 2, Tyler N. Shendruk 2, Ramin Golestanian 2 and Julia M. Yeomans 2,*
- Author Affiliations
1Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India.
2Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, 1 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3NP, UK.
↵*Corresponding author. Email: julia.yeomans@physics.ox.ac.uk
Science Advances 08 Jul 2016:
Vol. 2, no. 7, e1501854
Source/Fonte: University of Oxford
Abstract
Dense active matter, from bacterial suspensions and microtubule bundles driven by motor proteins to cellular monolayers and synthetic Janus particles, is characterized by mesoscale turbulence, which is the emergence of chaotic flow structures. By immersing an ordered array of symmetric rotors in an active fluid, we introduce a microfluidic system that exploits spontaneous symmetry breaking in mesoscale turbulence to generate work. The lattice of rotors self-organizes into a spin state where neighboring discs continuously rotate in permanent alternating directions due to combined hydrodynamic and elastic effects. Our virtual prototype demonstrates a new research direction for the design of micromachines powered by the nematohydrodynamic properties of active turbulence.
Key words Mesoscale turbulence active matter microrotor array self-organised spin-state activity-powered micromachines biological motors
Copyright © 2016, The Authors
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