Theoretical model of chirality-induced helical self-propulsion

Takaki Yamamoto and Masaki Sano
Phys. Rev. E 97, 012607 – Published 12 January 2018

Abstract

We recently reported the experimental realization of a chiral artificial microswimmer exhibiting helical self-propulsion [T. Yamamoto and M. Sano, Soft Matter 13, 3328 (2017)]. In the experiment, cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC) droplets dispersed in surfactant solutions swam spontaneously, driven by the Marangoni flow, in helical paths whose handedness is determined by the chirality of the component molecules of CLC. To study the mechanism of the emergence of the helical self-propelled motion, we propose a phenomenological model of the self-propelled helical motion of the CLC droplets. Our model is constructed by symmetry argument in chiral systems, and it describes the dynamics of CLC droplets with coupled time-evolution equations in terms of a velocity, an angular velocity, and a tensor variable representing the symmetry of the helical director field of the droplet. We found that helical motions as well as other chiral motions appear in our model. By investigating bifurcation behaviors between each chiral motion, we found that the chiral coupling terms between the velocity and the angular velocity, the structural anisotropy of the CLC droplet, and the nonlinearity of model equations play a crucial role in the emergence of the helical motion of the CLC droplet.

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  • Received 31 August 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.97.012607

©2018 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Polymers & Soft Matter

Authors & Affiliations

Takaki Yamamoto1,* and Masaki Sano2,†

  • 1Laboratory for Physical Biology, RIKEN Quantitative Biology Center, Kobe 650-0047, Japan
  • 2Department of Physics, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

  • *takaki.yamamoto@riken.jp
  • sano@daisy.phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp

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Vol. 97, Iss. 1 — January 2018

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