Emergence of Bimodal Motility in Active Droplets

Hokmabad, B.V. and Dey, R. and et al, . (2021) Emergence of Bimodal Motility in Active Droplets. Physical Review X, 11 (011043). ISSN 21603308

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Abstract

Artificial model swimmers offer a platform to explore the physical principles enabling biological complexity, for example, multigait motility: a strategy employed by many biomicroswimmers to explore and react to changes in their environment. Here, we report bimodal motility in autophoretic droplet swimmers, driven by characteristic interfacial flow patterns for each propulsive mode. We demonstrate a dynamical transition from quasiballistic to bimodal chaotic propulsion by controlling the viscosity of the environment. To elucidate the physical mechanism of this transition, we simultaneously visualize hydrodynamic and chemical fields and interpret these observations by quantitative comparison to established advection-diffusion models. We show that, with increasing viscosity, higher hydrodynamic modes become excitable and the droplet recurrently switches between two dominant modes due to interactions with the self-generated chemical gradients. This type of self-interaction promotes self-avoiding walks mimicking examples of efficient spatial exploration strategies observed in nature. Â© 2021 authors. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.

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IITH Creators:

IITH Creators	ORCiD
Dey, Ranabir	https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0514-7357

Item Type:

Article

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Advection-diffusion models; Biological complexity; Chemical gradients; Dynamical transition; Increasing viscosity; Physical principles; Quantitative comparison; Spatial explorations

Subjects:

Physics > Mechanical and aerospace

Divisions:

Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering

Depositing User:

Mrs Haseena VKKM

Date Deposited:

25 Jan 2022 05:48

Last Modified:

01 Mar 2022 06:51

URI:

http://raiithold.iith.ac.in/id/eprint/9123