https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2012-12071-4
Regular Article
Steering trajectories in magnetically actuated colloidal propellers
1
Departament d’Estructura i Constituents de la Matèria, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 647, 08028, Barcelona, Spain
2
Departament de Química Física, Universitat de Barcelona, Av. Diagonal 647, 08028, Barcelona, Spain
3
Institut de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia IN2UB, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
* e-mail: ptierno@ub.edu
Received:
23
March
2012
Revised:
5
June
2012
Accepted:
28
June
2012
Published online:
9
August
2012
Microscale colloidal doublets composed of DNA-linked paramagnetic particles and floating close to a surface are able to propel in viscous fluids when subjected to external precessing magnetic fields. We show here that for certain values of the precession angle, the composite particles can be steered into tilted rather than linear trajectories characterized by a non-vanishing lateral velocity during motion. We extend the original model developed in Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 218304 (2008) in order to explain this phenomenon, by including high-order corrections in the expansion of the director field and demonstrate the validity of this approach by comparing the analytical results with the experimental data.
Key words: Topical contribution
© EDP Sciences, SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2012