Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 27, 2025

Reconstitution of Basic Mitotic Spindles in Spherical Emulsion Droplets
Published on: August 13, 2016
Enhanced Rotational Motion of Spherical Squirmer in Polymer Solutions
Kai Qi1, Elmar Westphal2, Gerhard Gompper1
1Theoretical Soft Matter and Biophysics, Institute of Complex Systems and Institute for Advanced Simulation, Forschungszentrum Jülich and JARA, 52425 Jülich, Germany.
Abstract:
The rotational diffusive motion of a self-propelled, attractive spherical colloid immersed in a solution of self-avoiding polymers is studied by mesoscale hydrodynamic simulations. A drastic enhancement of the rotational diffusion by more than an order of magnitude in the presence of activity is obtained. The amplification is a consequence of two effects, a decrease of the amount of adsorbed polymers by active motion and an asymmetric encounter with polymers on the squirmer surface, which yields an additional torque and random noise for the rotational motion. Our simulations suggest a way to control the rotational dynamics of squirmer-type microswimmers by the degree of polymer adsorption and system heterogeneity.
Related Concept Videos
Polymer Classification: Stereospecificity
Rotational Motion about a Fixed Axis
Step-Growth Polymerization: Overview
Many natural and synthetic polymers are produced by...
Radical Chain-Growth Polymerization: Mechanism
Plastic Deformation in Circular Shafts
Radical Chain-Growth Polymerization: Overview

