Niu Ran, Palberg Thomas, Speck Thomas
Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Staudingerweg 7-9, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
Phys Rev Lett. 2017 Jul 14;119(2):028001. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.028001. Epub 2017 Jul 11.
The emergence of structure through aggregation is a fascinating topic and of both fundamental and practical interest. Here we demonstrate that self-generated solvent flow can be used to generate long-range attractions on the colloidal scale, with subpiconewton forces extending into the millimeter range. We observe a rich dynamic behavior with the formation and fusion of small clusters resembling molecules. The dynamics of this assembly is governed by an effective conservative energy that for large separations r decays as 1/r. Breaking the flow symmetry, these clusters can be made active.
通过聚集形成结构是一个引人入胜的话题，具有基础和实际意义。在这里，我们证明了自发生成的溶剂流可用于在胶体尺度上产生长程吸引力，亚皮牛顿力可延伸至毫米范围。我们观察到丰富的动态行为，包括类似分子的小聚集体的形成和融合。这种组装的动力学由一种有效的保守能量控制，对于大间距r，该能量以1/r的形式衰减。打破流动对称性，这些聚集体可以变得活跃。
