Motility of acoustically powered micro-swimmers in a liquid crystalline environment

Katuri, Jaideep; Snezhko, Alexey; Sokolov, Andrey

doi:10.1039/d2sm01171a

Motility of acoustically powered micro-swimmers in a liquid crystalline environment

Journal Article · Fri Nov 04 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Soft Matter

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1039/d2sm01171a· OSTI ID:1902148

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Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Suspensions of microswimmers in liquid crystals demonstrate remarkably complex dynamics and serve as a model system for studying active nematics. So far, experimental realization of microswimmers suspended in liquid crystalline media has relied on biological microorganisms that impose strict limitations on the compatible media and makes it difficult to regulate activity. Here, we demonstrate that acoustically powered bubble microswimmers can efficiently self-propel in a lyotropic liquid crystal. The velocity of the swimmers is controlled by the amplitude of the acoustic field. Histograms of swimming directions with respect to the local nematic field reveal a bimodal distribution: the swimmers tend to either fully align with or swim perpendicular to the director field of the liquid crystal, occasionally switching between these two states. The bubble-induced streaming from a swimmer locally melts the liquid crystal and produces topological defects at the tail of the swimmer. Further, we show that the defect proliferation rate increases with the angle between the swimmer's velocity and the local orientation of the director field.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 1902148

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1897319

Journal Information:: Soft Matter, Journal Name: Soft Matter Journal Issue: 45 Vol. 18; ISSN 1744-683X

Publisher:: Royal Society of ChemistryCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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