LadHyX - Département de Mécanique, CNRS - Ecole polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex, France.
Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, University of Cambridge, CB3 0WA, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Sci Rep. 2017 Feb 13;7:42264. doi: 10.1038/srep42264.
Catalytic swimmers have attracted much attention as alternatives to biological systems for examining collective microscopic dynamics and the response to physico-chemical signals. Yet, understanding and predicting even the most fundamental characteristics of their individual propulsion still raises important challenges. While chemical asymmetry is widely recognized as the cornerstone of catalytic propulsion, different experimental studies have reported that particles with identical chemical properties may propel in opposite directions. Here, we show that, beyond its chemical properties, the detailed shape of a catalytic swimmer plays an essential role in determining its direction of motion, demonstrating the compatibility of the classical theoretical framework with experimental observations.
作为替代生物系统的研究方法，催化游泳者在研究集体微观动力学和对物理化学信号的响应方面引起了广泛关注。然而，即使是对其单个推进的最基本特性的理解和预测，仍然提出了重要的挑战。虽然化学不对称性被广泛认为是催化推进的基石，但不同的实验研究表明，具有相同化学性质的颗粒可能会朝相反的方向推进。在这里，我们表明，除了化学性质之外，催化游泳者的详细形状在决定其运动方向方面起着至关重要的作用，这证明了经典理论框架与实验观察的兼容性。
