Ahmed Suzanne, Perez-Mercader Juan
Department of Nanoscience, Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2907 E Gate City Blvd, Greensboro, North Carolina 27401, United States.
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Origins of Life Initiative, Harvard University, 20 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, United States.
J Phys Chem B. 2025 Jan 9;129(1):554-562. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.4c07069. Epub 2024 Dec 23.
We report the interactions and dynamics of chemically powered soft swimmers that undergo autonomous oscillatory motion. The interaction of autonomous entities is the basis for the development of collective behaviors among biological organisms. Collective behaviors enable organisms to efficiently attain food and coordinate against threats. The basis of these behaviors is the interaction between nearest neighbors. Mimicking these interactions in artificial systems would enable their organization for the performance of complex tasks. Oscillatory phenomena are also ubiquitous in nature. Hence artificial oscillatory systems can serve as the most direct mimics and models of many biological systems. In this work, we report the interactions and dynamics of oscillatory swimmers propelled by the nonlinear oscillatory Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction. Individually, these swimmers displace by undergoing nonfully reciprocal oscillatory motion in conjunction with the BZ reaction. We find that, in addition to their individual oscillatory motion, multiple BZ swimmers exhibit successive oscillatory changes in their inter swimmer distance. This oscillatory attraction and repulsion between adjacent swimmers occurs in conjunction with the BZ waves and oxidation state of the catalyst. The effect of swimmer size and number on these dynamic interactions is interrogated. The level of chemical synchronization between multiple swimmers is determined. This work is a starting point for the design of collective behaviors utilizing autonomous chemically propelled soft swimmers.
我们报告了经历自主振荡运动的化学驱动软泳者的相互作用和动力学。自主实体之间的相互作用是生物有机体中集体行为发展的基础。集体行为使生物体能够有效地获取食物并协同应对威胁。这些行为的基础是最近邻之间的相互作用。在人工系统中模仿这些相互作用将使它们能够组织起来执行复杂任务。振荡现象在自然界中也无处不在。因此，人工振荡系统可以作为许多生物系统最直接的模拟和模型。在这项工作中，我们报告了由非线性振荡的贝洛索夫-扎博廷斯基（BZ）反应驱动的振荡泳者的相互作用和动力学。这些泳者单独通过与BZ反应一起进行不完全往复的振荡运动来位移。我们发现，除了它们各自的振荡运动外，多个BZ泳者在它们之间的距离上表现出连续的振荡变化。相邻泳者之间的这种振荡吸引和排斥与BZ波和催化剂的氧化态同时发生。研究了泳者大小和数量对这些动态相互作用的影响。确定了多个泳者之间的化学同步水平。这项工作是利用自主化学驱动软泳者设计集体行为的起点。
