Chemotaxis of Nonbiological Colloidal Rods

Yiying Hong, Nicole M. K. Blackman, Nathaniel D. Kopp, Ayusman Sen, and Darrell Velegol
Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 178103 – Published 26 October 2007

Abstract

Chemotaxis is the movement of organisms toward or away from a chemical attractant or toxin by a biased random walk process. Here we describe the first experimental example of chemotaxis outside biological systems. Platinum-gold rods 2.0μm long exhibit directed movement toward higher hydrogen peroxide concentrations through “active diffusion.” Brownian dynamics simulations reveal that no “temporal sensing” algorithm, commonly attributed to bacteria, is necessary; rather, the observed chemotaxis can be explained by random walk physics in a gradient of the active diffusion coefficient.

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  • Received 21 June 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.178103

©2007 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Yiying Hong1, Nicole M. K. Blackman2, Nathaniel D. Kopp2, Ayusman Sen1,2,*, and Darrell Velegol2,3,*

  • 1Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
  • 2Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
  • 3Department of Chemical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

  • *To whom correspondence should be addressed: asen@psu.edu velegol@psu.edu

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Vol. 99, Iss. 17 — 26 October 2007

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