Spontaneous Motion in Hierarchically Assembled
Active matter
T. Sanchez, D. Chen, S. DeCamp and Z. Dogic, Brandeis MRSEC (0820492)
Nature 481, 348-351(2012)
Most conventional materials are
assembled from inanimate
building blocks. We have explored
the behavior of soft materials in
which constituent energy
consuming units that are
assembled from animate energy
consuming components.
Thousands of these components
spontaneously coordinate their
microscopic activity to yield novel
gels, liquid crystals and emulsions
that crawl, flow, stream,
spontaneously fracture and selfheal, thus mimicking some of the
characteristics of living biological
organisms.