Electrically tunable collective motion of dissipative solitons in chiral nematic films.
Journal
Nature communications
ISSN: 2041-1723
Titre abrégé: Nat Commun
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101528555
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
19 04 2022
19 04 2022
Historique:
received:
13
09
2021
accepted:
17
03
2022
entrez:
20
4
2022
pubmed:
21
4
2022
medline:
22
4
2022
Statut:
epublish
Résumé
From the motion of fish and birds, to migrating herds of ungulates, collective motion has attracted people for centuries. Active soft matter exhibits a plethora of emergent dynamic behaviors that mimic those of biological systems. Here we introduce an active system composed of dynamic dissipative solitons, i.e. directrons, which mimics the collective motion of living systems. Although the directrons are inanimate, artificial particle-like solitonic field configurations, they locally align their motions like their biological counterparts. Driven by external electric fields, hundreds of directrons are generated in a chiral nematic film. They start with random motions but self-organize into flocks and synchronize their motions. The directron flocks exhibit rich dynamic behaviors and induce population density fluctuations far larger than those in thermal equilibrium systems. They exhibit "turbulent" swimming patterns manifested by transient vortices and jets. They even distinguish topological defects, heading towards defects of positive topological strength and avoiding negative ones.
Identifiants
pubmed: 35440645
doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29831-2
pii: 10.1038/s41467-022-29831-2
pmc: PMC9018705
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Langues
eng
Sous-ensembles de citation
IM
Pagination
2122Informations de copyright
© 2022. The Author(s).
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