Self-Propulsion Mechanism of Active Janus Particles in Near-Critical Binary Mixtures.

Gold-capped Janus particles immersed in a near-critical binary mixture can be propelled using illumination. We employ a nonisothermal diffuse interface approach to investigate the self-propulsion mechanism of a single colloid. We attribute the motion to body forces at the edges of a micronsized droplet that nucleates around the particle. Thus, the often-used concept of a surface velocity cannot account for the self-propulsion. The particle's swimming velocity is related to the droplet shape and size, which is determined by a so-called critical isotherm. Two distinct swimming regimes exist, depending on whether the droplet partially or completely covers the particle. Interestingly, the dependence of the swimming velocity on temperature is nonmonotonic in both regimes.

• Publication year

  2015

• Venue

  Physical Review Letters

• Publication date

  2015-06-18

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Materials Science, Physics

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.188305arXiv 1506.05695PMID 26565508
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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