Forced microrheology of active colloids
- Creators
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Peng, Zhiwei
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Brady, John F.
Abstract
Particle-tracking microrheology of dilute active (self-propelled) colloidal suspensions is studied by considering the external force required to maintain the steady motion of an immersed constant-velocity colloidal probe. If the probe speed is zero, the suspension microstructure is isotropic but exhibits a boundary accumulation of active bath particles at contact due to their self-propulsion. As the probe moves through the suspension, the microstructure is distorted from the nonequilibrium isotropic state, which allows us to define a microviscosity for the suspension using the Stokes drag law. For a slow probe, we show that active suspensions exhibit a swim-thinning behavior in which their microviscosity is gradually lowered from that of passive suspensions as the swim speed increases. When the probe speed is fast, the suspension activity is obscured by the rapid advection of the probe and the measured microviscosity is indistinguishable from that of passive suspensions. Generally for finite activity, the suspension exhibits a velocity-thinning behavior—though with a zero-velocity plateau lower than passive suspensions—as a function of the probe speed. These behaviors originate from the interplay between the suspension activity and the hard-sphere excluded-volume interaction between the probe and a bath particle.
Additional Information
We thank Hyeongjoo Row for useful discussions. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. CBET 1803662.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 116605
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20220829-467341900
- NSF
- CBET-1803662
- Created
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2022-09-01Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-09-01Created from EPrint's last_modified field