Different-shaped micro-objects driven by active particle aggregations

C Wang and HY Jiang, SOFT MATTER, 16, 4422-4430 (2020).

DOI: 10.1039/d0sm00160k

The dynamics of passive micro-objects in an active bath has been receiving much attention. However, the influence of the shapes of micro- objects remains unclear. Here, we use 2D simulation to investigate the interaction between active Brownian particles and different-shaped passive micro-objects. We show that active particles accumulate around micro-objects and self-assemble into living aggregations at a high active velocity and high volume fraction. The shapes of micro-objects affect the distributions of the aggregations. In turn, the different distribution of aggregations influences the motion of micro-objects and induces abnormal diffusive behaviors. We further demonstrate that polar distributed aggregations at a high active velocity and the inhibition of the active bath at a low active velocity induce the counterintuitive anisotropic enhanced diffusion of rods, and the steric interaction between active particles induces the reverse translation-rotation coupled diffusion of chevrons.

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