Working Paper
Authors
- Zuyao Xiao TU Dresden ,
- Audrey Nsamela Elveflow (France) ,
- Benjamin Garlan Elveflow (France) ,
- Juliane Simmchen
TU Dresden
Abstract
The ability of artificial microswimmers to respond to external stimuli and the mechanistical details of their origins belong to the most disputed challenges in interdisciplinary science. Therein, the creation of chemical gradients is technically challenging, because they quickly level out due to diffusion. Inspired by pivotal stopped flow experiments in chemical kinetics, we show that microfluidics gradient generation combined with a pressure feedback loop for precisely controlling the stop of the flows, can enable us to study mechanistical details of chemotaxis of artificial Janus micromotors, based on a catalytic reaction. We find that these copper Janus particles display a chemotactic motion along the concentration gradient in both, positive and negative direction and we demonstrate the mechanical reaction of the particles to small forces deviations, explaining this behaviour.
Content

Supplementary material

Supporting Info
SI containing video descriptions and additional materials on experiments and simulations

Supporting Video 1
Stopping the flow with inactive Janus particles

Supporting Video 2
Cu Janus particles moving in a H2O2 gradient

Supporting Video 3
Cu Janus particles moving in a homogeneously concentrated H202 solution