Autophoretic locomotion from geometric asymmetry

摘要: Among the few methods which have been proposed to create small-scale swimmers, those relying on self-phoretic mechanisms present an interesting design challenge in that chemical gradients are required generate net propulsion. Building recent work, we propose asymmetries geometry sufficient induce and swimming. We illustrate this idea using two different calculations. first calculate exactly self-propulsion speed of a system composed spheres unequal sizes but identically chemically homogeneous. then consider arbitrary, small-amplitude, shape deformations homogeneous sphere, asymptotically velocity induced by asymmetries. Our results demonstrate how geometric can be tuned large locomotion speeds without need patterning.