Microfluidics for Microswimmers: Engineering Novel Swimmers and Constructing Swimming Lanes on the Microscale, a Tutorial Review

Sharan, Priyanka; Nsamela, Audrey; Lesher‐Pérez, Sasha Cai; Simmchen, Juliane

doi:10.1002/smll.202007403

Cited by 31 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 138 publications

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“…Static confinement is invariant in time (e.g. the walls of a microfluidic chamber for microswimmers [37] or the plates used to confine active granular matter [34]); dynamic confinement instead varies in time (e.g. time-varying chemical gradients acting as confining fields for groups of cells in tissue [38] or cues leading to history-dependent formations for social animals, as in the case of ants following paths previously made by their peers [31]).…”

Section: The Role Of Confinement In Self-organisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Steering self-organisation through confinement

Araújo¹,

Janssen²,

Barois³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Self-organisation is the spontaneous emergence of spatio-temporal structures and patterns from the interaction of smaller individual units. Examples are found across many scales in very different systems and scientific disciplines, from physics, materials science and robotics to biology, geophysics and astronomy. Recent research has highlighted how self-organisation can be both mediated and controlled by confinement. Confinement occurs through interactions with boundaries, and can function as either a catalyst or inhibitor of self-organisation. It can then become a means to actively steer the emergence or suppression of collective phenomena in space and time. Here, to provide a common framework for future research, we examine the role of confinement in self-organisation and identify overarching scientific challenges across disciplines that need to be addressed to harness its full scientific and technological potential. This framework will not only accelerate the generation of a common deeper understanding of selforganisation but also trigger the development of innovative strategies to steer it through confinement, with impact, e.g., on the design of smarter materials, tissue engineering for biomedicine and crowd management.

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Section: The Role Of Confinement In Self-organisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Steering self-organisation through confinement

Araújo¹,

Janssen²,

Barois³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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“…Developments such as valves, sensors and pressure controllers have, jointly with improved computational facilities and coupling options, expanded the environments that can be created using controlled flows. In particular, the generation of gradients in microfluidics has been of growing interest for the active matter community [5] . Microfluidics was optimized in flowing conditions and stopping the flow was usually slow and frequently led to backflows or circulating media.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, the generation of gradients in microfluidics has been of growing interest for the active matter community. [5] Microfluidics was optimized in flowing conditions and stopping the flow was usually slow and frequently led to backflows or circulating media. Depending on the pumping mechanism and the rigidity of the employed materials to create chambers and tubes, this effect can be significant.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Platform for Stop‐Flow Gradient Generation to Investigate Chemotaxis

et al. 2022

Self Cite

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The ability of artificial microswimmers to respond to external stimuli and the mechanistical details of their origins belong to the most disputed challenges in interdisciplinary science. Therein, the creation of chemical gradients is technically challenging, because they quickly level out due to diffusion. Inspired by pivotal stopped flow experiments in chemical kinetics, we show that microfluidics gradient generation combined with a pressure feedback loop for precisely controlling the stop of the flows, can enable us to study mechanistical details of chemotaxis of artificial Janus micromotors, based on a catalytic reaction. We find that these copper Janus particles display a chemotactic motion along the concentration gradient in both, positive and negative direction and we demonstrate the mechanical reaction of the particles to unbalanced drag forces, explaining this behaviour.

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“…The magnetic control of microswimming devices [1][2][3][4][5] through micromanipulation, [6,7] targeted drug delivery, [8,9] or convection-enhanced transport, [10] has created new frontiers for biomedicine. A particularly promising technology involves corkscrew-shaped magnetic microswimmers (artificial bacterial flagella (ABFs)) that propel themselves when subjected to a rotating magnetic field.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Independent Control and Path Planning of Microswimmers with a Uniform Magnetic Field

Amoudruz

Koumoutsakos

2021

Advanced Intelligent Systems

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Artificial bacteria flagella (ABFs) are magnetic helical microswimmers that can be remotely controlled via a uniform, rotating magnetic field. Previous studies have used the heterogeneous response of microswimmers to external magnetic fields for achieving independent control. Herein, analytical and reinforcement learning control strategies for path planning to a target by multiple swimmers using a uniform magnetic field are introduced. The comparison of the two algorithms shows the superiority of reinforcement learning in achieving minimal travel time to a target. The results demonstrate, for the first time, the effective independent navigation of realistic microswimmers with a uniform magnetic field in a viscous flow field.

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Microfluidics for Microswimmers: Engineering Novel Swimmers and Constructing Swimming Lanes on the Microscale, a Tutorial Review

Cited by 31 publications

References 138 publications

Steering self-organisation through confinement

Steering self-organisation through confinement

A Platform for Stop‐Flow Gradient Generation to Investigate Chemotaxis

Independent Control and Path Planning of Microswimmers with a Uniform Magnetic Field

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