Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Northern Arizona Planetary Science Alliance (NAPSA) Fourth Annual 2018 Poster
Northern Arizona Planetary Science Alliance (NAPSA) Fourth Annual 2018 Poster
Overview
The overall goal of this project is to investigate how surfaces affect the dynamics of photoactivated
microparticles or microswimmers. Titanium dioxide (TiO2)/silica (SiO2) colloids are active under UV light and
self-propel. We found that both the material and the roughness of the surfaces over which the particles move
both strongly affect the speeds of the active particles, opening up a new route of control.
− +
𝐻2 𝑂2 + 2𝑒 + 2𝐻 → 2𝐻2 𝑂
+ +
𝐻2 𝑂2 + 2ℎ → 𝑂2 + 2𝐻
Ni
𝜁𝑝 − 𝜁𝑤
𝑣Ԧ ≅ 𝜖 𝐸
Activation under UV-light and resulting motion of the
𝜂
structured photoactive microswimmers Acknowledgments & References
Funding: NSF Award CBET-1703322: Photocatalytic Active Matter
Personnel: Sam Sarkar, John Castañeda
References:
(1) A. Leeth Holterhoff, M. Li, J. G. Gibbs*, Self-phoretic
microswimmers propel at speeds dependent upon an adjacent
surface's physicochemical properties. J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 9, 5023
(2018).
(2) Shape-dependent motion of structured photoactive microswimmers.
Speed on smooth surfaces (Blue) vs ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 10, 18050 (2018).
Video frames of the particles in action
rough surfaces (Grey) *email: john.gibbs@nau.edu