What is it about?
The confined movements of microscopic particles are ubiquitous in physics and biology. Examples at microscopic and nanoscopic scales include blood cells circulating in vessels, antibody recognition or the confined diffusion of neurotransmitters. These situations typically give rise to viscous flows coupled to charged and deformable boundaries, in the presence of thermal or active fluctuations. New hydrodynamic contact forces, induced by the deformability of submerged objects, have already been studied for deterministic situations. However, the influence of fluctuations - crucial at the microscopic scale - had yet to be explored. With the aim of understanding these non-trivial couplings, the EMetBrown group at the Laboratoire Ondes et Matiere d'Aquitaine (LOMA), from CNRS and Univ. Bordeaux, France, combines microscopy, statistical physics of complex systems and applied mathematics. Recently, these researchers observed the existence of a transient elastohydrodynamic lift force of a few piconewtons acting on soft, fluctuating and confined micro-droplets.
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Why is it important?
This type of force, hitherto unknown, seems to be universal and could help to explain, or even control, the transient migration and target finding of microscopic entities, omnipresent in the machinery of life.
Perspectives
After this decisive primary step, and the general upgrade of the system to reach the next level in terms of force and spatial resolutions, everything is now ready to address novel exciting scenarios involving: multiple particles, complex boundaries, active fluctuations, external flows, trapping protocols, chemical reactions, biomimetic materials, etc.
Thomas Salez
CNRS
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Observation of Brownian elastohydrodynamic forces acting on confined soft colloids, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 2024, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2411956121.
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