Polar jets of swimming bacteria condensed by a patterned liquid crystal
| Autor: | Taras Turiv, Kristian Thijssen, Mikhail Genkin, Chenhui Peng, Oleg D. Lavrentovich, Igor S. Aranson, Runa Koizumi, Amin Doostmohammadi, Julia M. Yeomans, Qi-Huo Wei, Hao Yu |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
Liquid crystalline Active particles PLATFORM General Physics and Astronomy FOS: Physical sciences DEFECTS Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter 01 natural sciences Instability Quantitative Biology::Cell Behavior 010305 fluids & plasmas Active matter Quantitative Biology::Subcellular Processes Chemical physics Liquid crystal 0103 physical sciences Polar Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) 010306 general physics Microscale chemistry |
| Zdroj: | Nature Physics Turiv, T, Koizumi, R, Thijssen, K, Genkin, M M, Yu, H, Peng, C, Wei, Q-H, Yeomans, J M, Aranson, I S, Doostmohammadi, A & Lavrentovich, O D 2020, ' Polar jets of swimming bacteria condensed by a patterned liquid crystal ', Nature Physics, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 481-487 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-0793-0 |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41567-020-0793-0 |
| Popis: | Active matter exhibits remarkable collective behavior in which flows, continuously generated by active particles, are intertwined with the orientational order of these particles. The relationship remains poorly understood as the activity and order are difficult to control independently. Here we demonstrate important facets of this interplay by exploring dynamics of swimming bacteria in a liquid crystalline environment with pre-designed periodic splay and bend in molecular orientation. The bacteria are expelled from the bend regions and condense into polar jets that propagate and transport cargo unidirectionally along the splay regions. The bacterial jets remain stable even when the local concentration exceeds the threshold of bending instability in a non-patterned system. Collective polar propulsion and different role of bend and splay are explained by an advection-diffusion model and by numerical simulations that treat the system as a two-phase active nematic. The ability of prepatterned liquid crystalline medium to streamline the chaotic movements of swimming bacteria into polar jets that can carry cargo along a predesigned trajectory opens the door for potential applications in cell sorting, microscale delivery and soft microrobotics. Comment: Main text (17 pages and 5 figures) and supplementary materials (10 pages and 4 figures) |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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