Chemically active colloids near osmotic-responsive walls with surface-chemistry gradients

Spontaneous vortex formation by microswimmers with retarded attractions

Collective states of inanimate particles self-assemble through physical interactions and thermal motion. Despite some phenomenological resemblance, including signatures of criticality, the autonomous dynamics that binds motile agents into flocks, herds, or swarms allows for much richer behavior. Low-dimensional models have hinted at the crucial role played in this respect by perceived information, decision-making, and feedback, implying that the corresponding interactions are inevitably retarded. Here we present experiments on spherical Brownian microswimmers with delayed self-propulsion toward a spatially fixed target. We observe a spontaneous symmetry breaking to a transiently chiral dynamical state and concomitant critical behavior that do not rely on many-particle cooperativity. By comparison with the stochastic delay differential equation of motion of a single swimmer, we pinpoint the delay-induced effective synchronization of the swimmers with their own past as the key mechanism. Increasing numbers of swimmers self-organize into layers with pro- and retrograde orbital motion, synchronized and stabilized by steric, phoretic, and hydrodynamic interactions. Our results demonstrate how even most simple retarded interactions can foster emergent complex adaptive behavior in small active-particle ensembles.

Interactions in active colloids

The past two decades have seen a remarkable progress in the development of synthetic colloidal agents which are capable of creating directed motion in an unbiased environment at the microscale. These self-propelling particles are often praised for their enormous potential to self-organize into dynamic nonequilibrium structures such as living clusters, synchronized super-rotor structures or self-propelling molecules featuring a complexity which is rarely found outside of the living world. However, the precise mechanisms underlying the formation and dynamics of many of these structures are still barely understood, which is likely to hinge on the gaps in our understanding of how active colloids interact. In particular, besides showing comparatively short-ranged interactions which are well known from passive colloids (Van der Waals, electrostatic etc), active colloids show novel hydrodynamic interactions as well as phoretic and substrate-mediated 'osmotic' cross-interactions which hinge on the action of the phoretic field gradients which are induced by the colloids on other colloids in the system. The present article discusses the complexity and the intriguing properties of these interactions which in general are long-ranged, non-instantaneous, non-pairwise and non-reciprocal and which may serve as key ingredients for the design of future nonequilibrium colloidal materials. Besides providing a brief overview on the state of the art of our understanding of these interactions a key aim of this review is to emphasize open key questions and corresponding open challenges.

Chemically Active Particles: From One to Few on the Way to Many

Chemically active particles suspended in a liquid solution can achieve self-motility by locally changing the chemical composition of the solution via catalytic reactions at their surfaces. They operate intrinsically out of equilibrium, continuously extracting free energy from the environment to power the dissipative self-motility. The effective interactions involving active particles are, in general, nonreciprocal and anisotropic, even if the particles have simple shapes (e.g., Janus spheres). Accordingly, for chemically active particles a very rich behavior of collective motion and self-assembly may be expected to emerge, including phenomena such as microphase separation in the form of kinetically stable, finite-sized aggregates. Here, I succinctly review a number of recent experimental studies that demonstrate the self-assembly of structures, involving chemically active Janus particles, which exhibit various patterns of motion. These examples illustrate concepts such as "motors made out of motors" (as suggestively named by Fischer [Fischer, P. Nat. Phys. 2018, 14, 1072]). The dynamics of assembly and structure formation observed in these systems can provide benchmark, in-depth testing of the current understanding of motion and effective interactions produced by chemical activity. Finally, one notes that these significant achievements are likely just the beginning of the field. Recently reported particles endowed with time-dependent chemical activity or switchable reaction mechanisms open the way for exciting developments, such as periodic reshaping of self-assembled structures based on man-made internal clocks.

Theory of light-activated catalytic Janus particles

We study the dynamics of active Janus particles that self-propel in solution by light-activated catalytic decomposition of chemical "fuel." We develop an analytical model of a photo-active self-phoretic particle that accounts for "self-shadowing" of the light by the opaque catalytic face of the particle. We find that self-shadowing can drive "phototaxis" (rotation of the catalytic cap toward the light source) or "anti-phototaxis," depending on the properties of the particle. Incorporating the effect of thermal noise, we show that the distribution of particle orientations is captured by a Boltzmann distribution with a nonequilibrium effective potential. Furthermore, the mean vertical velocity of phototactic (anti-phototactic) particles exhibits a superlinear (sublinear) dependence on intensity. Overall, our findings show that photo-active particles exhibit a rich "tactic" response to light, which could be harnessed to program complex three-dimensional trajectories.

Effective Interactions between Chemically Active Colloids and Interfaces

Chemically active colloids can achieve force- and torque-free motility ("self-propulsion") via the promotion, on their surface, of catalytic chemical reactions involving the surrounding solution. Such systems are valuable both from a theoretical perspective, serving as paradigms for nonequilibrium processes, as well as from an application viewpoint, according to which active colloids are envisioned to play the role of carriers ("engines") in novel lab-on-a-chip devices. The motion of such colloids is intrinsically connected with a "chemical field", i.e., the distribution near the colloid of the number densities of the various chemical species present in the solution, and with the hydrodynamic flow of the solution around the particle. In most of the envisioned applications, and in virtually all reported experimental studies, the active colloids operate under spatial confinement (e.g., within a microfluidic channel, a drop, a free-standing liquid film, etc.). In such cases, the chemical field and the hydrodynamic flow associated with an active colloid are influenced by any nearby confining surfaces, and these disturbances couple back to the particle. Thus, an effective interaction with the spatial confinement arises. Consequently, the particle is endowed with means to perceive and to respond to its environment. Understanding these effective interactions, finding the key parameters which control them, and designing particles with desired, preconfigured responses to given environments, require interdisciplinary approaches which synergistically integrate methods and knowledge from physics, chemistry, engineering, and materials science. Here we review how, via simple models of chemical activity and self-phoretic motion, progress has recently been made in understanding the basic physical principles behind the complex behaviors exhibited by active particles near interfaces. First, we consider the occurrence of "interface-bounded" steady states of chemically active colloids near simple, nonresponsive interfaces. Examples include particles "sliding" along, or "hovering" above, a hard planar wall while inducing hydrodynamic flow of the solution. These states lay the foundations for concepts like the guidance of particles by the topography of the wall. We continue to discuss responsive interfaces: a suitable chemical patterning of a planar wall allows one to bring the particles into states of motion which are spatially localized (e.g., within chemical stripes or along chemical steps). These occur due to the wall responding to the activity-induced chemical gradients by generating osmotic flows, which encode the surface-chemistry of the wall. Finally, we discuss how, via activity-induced Marangoni stresses, long-ranged effective interactions emerge from the strong hydrodynamic response of fluid interfaces. These examples highlight how in this context a desired behavior can be potentially selected by tuning suitable parameters (e.g., the phoretic mobility of the particle, or the strength of the Marangoni stress at an interface). This can be accomplished via a judicious design of the surface chemistry of the particle and of the boundary, or by the choice of the chemical reaction in solution.

Self-Phoretic Microswimmers Propel at Speeds Dependent upon an Adjacent Surface's Physicochemical Properties

Self-phoretic colloids are emerging as critical components of programmable nano- and microscale active matter and may usher in a new area of complex, small-scale machinery. To date, most studies have focused upon active particles confined by gravity to a plane located just above a solid/liquid interface. Despite this ubiquity, little attention has been directed at how the physicochemical qualities of this interface might affect motion. Here, we show that both the chemical and physical properties of the solid, above which motion takes place, significantly influence the behavior of particles propelled by self-generated concentration gradients. More specifically, titania/silica (TiO₂/SiO₂) photoactive microswimmers move faster when the local osmotic flow over the stationary solid is diminished, which we demonstrate by reducing the magnitude of the surface's zeta potential or by increasing surface roughness. Our results suggest that consideration of surface properties is crucial for modeling self-phoretic active matter while simultaneously offering a new avenue for engineering the kinematic behavior of such systems.

Shape-Dependent Motion of Structured Photoactive Microswimmers

We investigate the dynamics of structured photoactive microswimmers and show that morphology sensitively determines the swimming behavior. Particular to this study, a major portion of the light-activated particles' underlying structure is built from a photocatalytic material, made possible by dynamic physical vapor deposition (DPVD). We find that swimmers of this type exhibit unique shape-dependent autonomous swimming that is distinct from what is seen in systems with similar structural morphology but not fabricated directly from the catalyst. Notably, the direction of motion is a function of these parameters. Because the swimming behavior is strongly correlated with particle shape and material composition, DPVD allows for engineering small-scale propulsion by adjusting the fabrication parameters to match the desired performance.