A composite micromotor driven by self-thermophoresis and Brownian rectification |
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| Affiliation: | 1.University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;2.Beijing National Laboratory for Condensed Matter Physics and Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Physics, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China;3.Institute for Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China;4.Songshan Lake Materials Laboratory, Dongguan 523808, China;5.Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou 325001, China |
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| Abstract: | Brownian motors and self-phoretic microswimmers are two typical micromotors, for which thermal fluctuations play different roles. Brownian motors utilize thermal noise to acquire unidirectional motion, while thermal fluctuations randomize the self-propulsion of self-phoretic microswimmers. Here we perform mesoscale simulations to study a composite micromotor composed of a self-thermophoretic Janus particle under a time-modulated external ratchet potential. The composite motor exhibits a unidirectional transport, whose direction can be reversed by tuning the modulation frequency of the external potential. The maximum transport capability is close to the superposition of the drift speed of the pure Brownian motor and the self-propelling speed of the pure self-thermophoretic particle. Moreover, the hydrodynamic effect influences the orientation of the Janus particle in the ratched potential, hence also the performance of the composite motor. Our work thus provides an enlightening attempt to actively exploit inevitable thermal fluctuations in the implementation of the self-phoretic microswimmers. |
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| Keywords: | Brownian motors self-phoretic microswimmers thermal noise hydrodynamic effect |
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