Proceedings of nanoGe Spring Meeting 2022 (NSM22)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nsm.2022.250
Publication date: 7th February 2022
Breaking the symmetry: Designing colloidal microswimmers
Breaking symmetry is at the very core of achieving propulsion at the microscale, where viscous forces dominate. Nature has perfected a range of different strategies to reach this goal for swimming microorganisms, which scientists have taken inspiration from to produce artificial micro-swimmers [1]. A common way to achieve propulsion at the colloidal scale is to produce artificial particles that have asymmetric shapes and surface properties. I will show a new fabrication strategy to create microswimmers with full control on their geometrical and compositional asymmetry. The method is based on the sequential deposition of microspheres on topographical templates, where we independently define the swimmers’ shape by defining the shape of template, and we program their composition by fixing the deposition sequence [2]. I will show how we can use this fabrication strategy to design and obtain particles that translate, rotate, switch between these two modes of motion and even perform drag-and-drop tasks in crowded environments, propelled by uniform AC electric fields [3,4]. These results show how the design of microswimmers can enable the development of active components for the realization of autonomous systems working in complex environments.