Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 31: Active Matter 4 (joint session DY/BP/CPP)

CPP 31.1: Talk

Wednesday, September 7, 2022, 15:00–15:15, H18

Clusters and fractals in non-reciprocally interacting colloids — •Sebastian Fehlinger and Benno Liebchen — Institut für Physik kondensierter Materie, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Hochschulstraße 8, D-64289 Darmstadt, Germany

Non-reciprocal interactions are widespread in nature. For the specific case of a binary mixture of passive particles, the breaking of the action reaction principle can lead to formation of active colloidal molecules which are capable of self-propulsion. For small systems, such active molecules have already been realized in experiments based on phoretically interacting binary colloidal mixtures [1,2].

The focus of the present work is to understand the many body behaviour of active molecules. Using particle based simulations and continuum theory, we find that non-reciprocal attractions in a binary mixture of non-motile particles can destabilize the uniform disordered phase and lead to clusters which grow in time. Surprisingly, for a wide parameter range, the clusters only grow up to a certain size such that coarsening is arrested. We attribute this to an effective screening effect which hinges on the characteristic spatiotemporal organization of the two species within the clusters. In addition, remarkably, in a different parameter regime, we find porous macroclusters featuring significant holes and a fractal dimension which differs from the one expected for conventional diffusion limited aggregation.

[1]F. Schmidt et al. J. Chem. Phys. 150, 094905 (2019)

[2]J. Grauer et al. Nat. Commun. 12, 6005 (2021).