Feedback control of photoresponsive fluid interfaces

Intermittent attractive interactions lead to microphase separation in nonmotile active matter

Nonmotile active matter exhibits a wide range of nonequilibrium collective phenomena yet examples are crucially lacking in the literature. We present a microscopic model inspired by the bacteria Neisseria meningitidis in which diffusive agents feel intermittent attractive forces. Through a formal coarse-graining procedure, we show that this truly scalar model of active matter exhibits the time-reversal-symmetry breaking terms defining the Active Model B+ class. In particular, we confirm the presence of microphase separation by solving the kinetic equations numerically. We show that the switching rate controlling the interactions provides a regulation mechanism tuning the typical cluster size, e.g., in populations of bacteria interacting via type IV pili.

Depinning of Multiphase Fluid Using Light and Photo-Responsive Surfactants

The development of noninvasive and robust strategies for manipulation of droplets and bubbles is crucial in applications such as boiling and condensation, electrocatalysis, and microfluidics. In this work, we realize the swift departure of droplets and bubbles from solid substrates by introducing photoresponsive surfactants and applying asymmetric illumination, thereby inducing a "photo-Marangoni" lift force. Experiments show that a pinned toluene droplet can depart the substrate in only 0.38 s upon illumination, and the volume of an air bubble at departure is reduced by 20%, indicating significantly faster departure. These benefits can be achieved with moderate light intensities and dilute surfactant concentrations, without specially fabricated substrates, which greatly facilitates practical applications. Simulations suggest that the net departure force includes contributions from viscous stresses directly caused by the Marangoni flow, as well as from pressure buildup due to flow stagnation at the contact line. The manipulation scheme proposed here shows potential for applications requiring droplet and bubble removal from working surfaces.

Steering droplets on substrates using moving steps in wettability

Droplets move on substrates with a spatio-temporal wettability pattern as generated, for example, on light-switchable surfaces. To study such cases, we implement the boundary-element method to solve the governing Stokes equations for the fluid flow field inside and on the surface of a droplet and supplement it by the Cox-Voinov law for the dynamics of the contact line. Our approach reproduces the relaxation of an axisymmetric droplet in experiments, which we initiate by instantaneously switching the uniform wettability of a substrate quantified by the equilibrium contact angle. In a step profile of wettability the droplet moves towards higher wettability. Using a feedback loop to keep the distance or offset between step and droplet center constant, induces a constant velocity with which the droplet surfs on the wettability step. We analyze the velocity in terms of droplet offset and step width for typical wetting parameters. Moving instead the wettability step with constant speed, we determine the maximally possible droplet velocities under various conditions. The observed droplet speeds agree with the values from the feedback study for the same positive droplet offset.

Spatial organization of active particles with field-mediated interactions

We consider a system of independent pointlike particles performing a Brownian motion while interacting with a Gaussian fluctuating background. These particles are in addition endowed with a discrete two-state internal degree of freedom that is subjected to a nonequilibrium source of noise, which affects their coupling with the background field. We explore the phase diagram of the system and pinpoint the role of the nonequilibrium drive in producing a nontrivial patterned spatial organization. We are able, by means of a weakly nonlinear analysis, to account for the parameter-dependence of the boundaries of the phase and pattern diagram in the stationary state.

Information transmission by Marangoni-driven relaxation oscillations at droplets

Marangoni-driven relaxation oscillations can be observed in many systems where concentration gradients of surface-active substances exist. In the present paper, we describe the experimentally observed coupling between relaxation oscillations at neighboring droplets in a concentration gradient. By a numerical parameter study, we evaluate the oscillation characteristics depending on relevant material parameters and the pairwise droplet distance. Based on these findings, we demonstrate that hydrodynamic interaction in multidroplet configurations can lead to a synchronization of the oscillations over the whole ensemble. This effect has the potential to be used as a novel approach for information transmission in microfluidic applications.