Circular Microswimmers published in Phys. Rev. Lett.

Circular motion of asymmetric self-propelling particles

Circular motion of asymmetric self-propelling particles
Felix Kümmel, Borge ten Hagen, Raphael Wittkowski, Ivo Buttinoni, Giovanni Volpe, Hartmut Löwen & Clemens Bechinger
Physical Review Letters 110(19), 198302 (2013)
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.198302
arXiv: 1302.5787

See also Reply to comment on “Circular motion of asymmetric self-propelling particles”, Physical Review Letters 113(2), 029802 (2014)

Micron-sized self-propelled (active) particles can be considered as model systems for characterizing more complex biological organisms like swimming bacteria or motile cells. We produce asymmetric microswimmers by soft lithography and study their circular motion on a substrate and near channel boundaries. Our experimental observations are in full agreement with a theory of Brownian dynamics for asymmetric self-propelled particles, which couples their translational and orientational motion.

Featured in “Synopsis: Round and Round in Circles”, Physics (May 9, 2013)