Abstract
Machines enabled the Industrial Revolution and are central to modern technological progress: A machine’s parts transmit forces, motion, and energy to one another in a predetermined manner. Today’s engineering frontier, building artificial micromachines that emulate the biological machinery of living organisms, requires faithful assembly and energy consumption at the microscale. Here, we demonstrate the programmable assembly of active particles into autonomous metamachines using optical templates. Metamachines, or machines made of machines, are stable, mobile and autonomous architectures, whose dynamics stems from the geometry. We use the interplay between anisotropic force generation of the active colloids with the control of their orientation by local geometry. This allows autonomous reprogramming of active particles of the metamachines to achieve multiple functions. It permits the modular assembly of metamachines by fusion, reconfiguration of metamachines and, we anticipate, a shift in focus of self-assembly towards active matter and reprogrammable materials.
Highlights
Machines enabled the Industrial Revolution and are central to modern technological progress: A machine’s parts transmit forces, motion, and energy to one another in a predetermined manner
The architectures are autonomous, mobile and stable. It is made possible by harnessing the non-equilibrium properties of active particles to maintain the stability of templated architecture and achieve specified dynamics
Particles in the core sit vertically and exert attractive forces maintaining the cohesion of the structure; particles at the boundary lay flat on the substrate exerting forces that prescribe the dynamics of the structure
Summary
Machines enabled the Industrial Revolution and are central to modern technological progress: A machine’s parts transmit forces, motion, and energy to one another in a predetermined manner. We use the interplay between anisotropic force generation of the active colloids with the control of their orientation by local geometry This allows autonomous reprogramming of active particles of the metamachines to achieve multiple functions. We take advantage of the chemical and physical anisotropy of colloidal heterodimers (Fig. 1a), leading to their self-propulsion and orientation in an optical field, to control anisotropic and reprogrammable interactions between particles. This approach overcomes traditional limitations of optical tweezers for their use in self-assembly and engineering of micromachines
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