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Results for “active nematic”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Light-activated microtubule-based two-dimensional active nematic

We assess the ability of two light responsive kinesin motor clusters to drive dynamics of microtubule-based active nematics: opto-K401, a processive motor, and opto-K365, a non-processive motor. Measurements reveal an order of magnitude improvement in the contrast of nematic flow speeds between maximally- and minimally-illuminated states for opto-K365 motors when compared to opto-K401 construct. For opto-K365 nematics, we characterize both the steady-state flow and defect density as a function of applied light. We also examine the transient behavior as the system switches between steady-states upon changes in light intensities. Although nematic flows reach a steady state within tens of seconds, the defect density exhibits transient behavior for up to 10 minutes, showing a separation between small-scale active flows and system-scale structural states. Furthermore, our work establishes an experimental platform that can exploit spatiotemporally-heterogeneous patterns of activity to generate targeted dynamical states.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2022

Data-Driven Discovery of Active Nematic Hydrodynamics

Active nematics can be modeled using phenomenological continuum theories that account for the dynamics of the nematic director and fluid velocity through partial differential equations (PDEs). While these models provide a statistical description of the experiments, the relevant terms in the PDEs and their parameters are usually identified indirectly. We adapt a recently developed method to automatically identify optimal continuum models for active nematics directly from spatio-temporal data, via sparse regression of the coarse-grained fields onto generic low order PDEs. After extensive benchmarking, we apply the method to experiments with microtubule-based active nematics, finding a surprisingly minimal description of the system. Furthermore, our approach can be generalized to gain insights into active gels, microswimmers, and diverse other experimental active matter systems.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2025

Modeling active nematics via the nematic locking principle

Active nematic systems consist of rod-like internally driven subunits that interact with one another to form large-scale coherent flows. They are important examples of far-from-equilibrium fluids, which exhibit a wealth of nonlinear behavior. This includes active turbulence, in which topological defects in the nematic order braid around one another in a chaotic fashion. One of the most studied examples of active nematics consists of a dense two-dimensional layer of microtubules, crosslinked by kinesin molecular motors that inject extensile deformations into the fluid. Though numerous theoretical studies have modeled microtubule-based active nematics, no consensus has emerged on how to fully and quantitatively capture the features of the experimental system. Here, to better understand the theoretical foundations for modeling this system, we propose a fundamental principle we call the nematic locking principle—individual microtubules cannot rotate without all neighboring microtubules also rotating. Physically, this is justified by the high density of the microtubules, their elongated nature, and their corresponding steric interactions. We assert that the nematic locking principle holds throughout the majority of the material, but breaks down in the neighborhood of topological defects and other regions of low density. We derive the most general nematic transport equation consistent with this principle and also derive the most general term that violates it, introducing fracturing into the material. We then examine the standard Beris–Edwards approach, commonly used to model this system, and show that it violates the nematic locking principle throughout the majority of the material due to fracturing. We then propose a modification to the Beris–Edwards model that enforces nematic locking nearly everywhere. This modification shuts off fracturing except in regions where the order parameter (a proxy for density) is reduced. In these regions fracturing is turned on. The resulting simulations in turn show strong nematic locking throughout the bulk of the material, with narrow bands of fracturing, consistent with experimental observation. One additional advantage of enforcing nematic locking is that nontrivial stationary state solutions, common in Beris–Edwards simulations but not seen in experiments, are eliminated.

Mitchell, Kevin A. [Univ. of California, Merced, C↗
DOE OSTI2022

Exact Coherent Structures and Phase Space Geometry of Preturbulent 2D Active Nematic Channel Flow

Confined active nematics exhibit rich dynamical behavior, including spontaneous flows, periodic defect dynamics, and chaotic “active turbulence.” Here, we study these phenomena using the framework of exact coherent structures, which has been successful in characterizing the routes to high Reynolds number turbulence of passive fluids. Exact coherent structures are stationary, periodic, quasiperiodic, or traveling wave solutions of the hydrodynamic equations that, together with their invariant manifolds, serve as an organizing template of the dynamics. We compute the dominant exact coherent structures and connecting orbits in a preturbulent active nematic channel flow, which enables a fully nonlinear but highly reduced-order description in terms of a directed graph. Using this reduced representation, we compute instantaneous perturbations that switch the system between disparate spatiotemporal states occupying distant regions of the infinite-dimensional phase space. Overall, our results lay the groundwork for a systematic means of understanding and controlling active nematic flows in the moderate- to high-activity regime.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Multiscale Microtubule Dynamics in Active Nematics

In microtubule-based active nematics, motor-driven extensile motion of microtubule bundles powers chaotic large-scale dynamics. We quantify the interfilament sliding motion both in isolated bundles and in a dense active nematic. The extension speed of an isolated microtubule pair is comparable to the molecular motor stepping speed. In contrast, the net extension in dense 2D active nematics is significantly slower; the interfilament sliding speeds are widely distributed about the average and the filaments exhibit both contractile and extensile relative motion. These measurements highlight the challenge of connecting the extension rate of isolated bundles to the multimotor and multifilament interactions present in a dense 2D active nematic. Furthermore, they also provide quantitative data that is essential for building multiscale models.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Rectified Rotational Dynamics of Mobile Inclusions in Two-Dimensional Active Nematics

We investigate the dynamics of mobile inclusions embedded in 2D active nematics. The interplay between the inclusion shape, boundary-induced nematic order, and autonomous flows powers the inclusion motion. Disks and achiral gears exhibit unbiased rotational motion, but with distinct dynamics. In comparison, chiral gear-shaped inclusions exhibit long-term rectified rotation, which is correlated with dynamics and polarization of nearby +1/2 topological defects. Furthermore, the chirality of defect polarities and the active nematic texture around the inclusion correlate with the inclusion’s instantaneous rotation rate. Inclusions provide a promising tool for probing the rheological properties of active nematics and extracting ordered motion from their inherently chaotic motion.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2025

Achieving designed texture and flows in bulk active nematics using optimal control theory

Being intrinsically nonequilibrium, active materials can potentially perform functions that would be thermodynamically forbidden in passive materials. However, active systems have diverse local attractors that correspond to distinct dynamical states, many of which exhibit chaotic turbulent-like dynamics and thus cannot perform work or useful functions. Designing such a system to choose a specific dynamical state is a formidable challenge. Motivated by recent advances enabling optogenetic control of experimental active materials, we describe an optimal control theory framework that identifies a spatiotemporal sequence of light-generated activity that drives an active nematic system toward a prescribed dynamical steady state. Active nematics are unstable to spontaneous defect proliferation and chaotic streaming dynamics in the absence of control. We demonstrate that optimal control theory can compute activity fields that redirect the dynamics into a variety of alternative dynamical programs and functions. This includes dynamically reconfiguring between states, selecting and stabilizing emergent behaviors that do not correspond to attractors, and are hence unstable in the uncontrolled system. Furthermore, our results provide a roadmap to leverage optical control methods to rationally design structure, dynamics, and function in a wide variety of active materials.

Complex systems theory↗
DOE OSTI2024

Mechanochemical topological defects in an active nematic

We propose a reaction-diffusion system that converts topological information of an active nematic into chemical signals. We show that a curvature-activated reaction dipole is sufficient for creating a system that dynamically senses topology by producing a concentration field possessing local extrema coinciding with ±$\frac{1}{2}$ defects. The enabling term is analogous to polarization charge density seen in dielectric materials. We demonstrate the ability of this system to identify defects in both passive and active nematics. Our results illustrate that a relatively simple feedback scheme, expressed as a system of partial differential equations, is capable of producing chemical signals in response to inherently nonlocal structures in anisotropic media. Here, we posit that such coarse-grained systems can help generate testable hypotheses for regulated processes in biological systems, such as morphogenesis, and motivate the creation of bio-inspired materials that utilize dynamic coupling between nematic structure and biochemistry.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Analytical model for the motion and interaction of two-dimensional active nematic defects

Here, we develop an approximate, analytical model for the velocity of defects in active nematics by combining recent results for the velocity of topological defects in nematic liquid crystals with the flow field generated from individual defects in active nematics. Importantly, our model takes into account the long-range interactions between defects that result from the flows they produce as well as the orientational coupling between defects inherent in nematics. Our work complements previous studies of active nematic defect motion by introducing a linear approximation that allows us to treat defect interactions as two-body interactions and incorporates the hydrodynamic screening length as a tuning parameter. We show that the model can analytically predict bound states between two +1/2 winding number defects, effective attraction between two –1/2 defects, and the scaling of a critical unbinding length between ±1/2 defects with activity. The model also gives predictions for the trajectories of defects, such as the scattering of +1/2 defects by –1/2 defects at a critical impact parameter that depends on activity. In the presence of circular confinement, the model predicts a braiding motion for three +1/2 defects that was recently seen in experiments, as well as stable and ergodic trajectories for four or more defects.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Photosynthetically-powered phototactic active nematic liquid crystal fluids and gels

Abstract One of the most ancient forms of life dating to ~3.5 billion years ago, cyanobacteria are highly abundant organisms that convert light into energy and motion, often within conjoined filaments and larger colonies that attract a great deal of interest but their active nematic behavior remained unexplored. Here we demonstrate how light causes a spontaneous self-assembly of two- and three-dimensional active nematic states of cyanobacterial filaments, with a plethora of topological defects. We quantify light-controlled evolutions of orientational and velocity order parameters during the transition between disordered and orientationally ordered states of photosynthetic active matter, as well as the subsequent active nematic’s fluid-gel transformation. Patterned illumination and foreign inclusions with different shapes interact with cyanobacterial active nematics in nontrivial ways while inducing interfacial boundary conditions and fractional boojum defects. Our phototactic model system promises opportunities to systematically explore fundamental properties and technological utility of the liquid crystalline active matter.

Repula, Andrii↗
DOE OSTI2024

Active nematic ratchet in asymmetric obstacle arrays

We numerically investigate the effect of an asymmetric periodic obstacle array in a two-dimensional active nematic. We find that activity in conjunction with the asymmetry leads to a ratchet effect or unidirectional flow of the fluid along the asymmetry direction. The directional flow is still present even in the active turbulent phase when the gap between obstacles is sufficiently small. We demonstrate that the dynamics of the topological defects transition from flow mirroring to smectic-like as the gap between obstacles is made smaller, and explain this transition in terms of the pinning of negative winding number defects between obstacles. This also leads to a nonmonotonic ratchet effect magnitude as a function of obstacle size, so that there is an optimal obstacle size for ratcheting at fixed activity.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Friction-mediated phase transition in confined active nematics

Using a minimal continuum model, we investigate the interplay between circular confinement and substrate friction in active nematics. Upon increasing the friction from low to high, we observe a dynamical phase transition from a circulating flow phase to an anisotropic flow phase in which the flow tends to align perpendicular to the nematic director at the boundary. We demonstrate that both the flow structure and dynamic correlations in the latter phase differ from those of an unconfined, active turbulent system and may be controlled by the prescribed nematic boundary conditions. Here, our results show that substrate friction and geometric confinement act as valuable control parameters in active nematics.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

Topological structure and dynamics of three-dimensional active nematics

Topological structures are effective descriptors of the nonequilibrium dynamics of diverse many-body systems. For example, motile, point-like topological defects capture the salient features of two-dimensional active liquid crystals composed of energy-consuming anisotropic units. We dispersed force-generating microtubule bundles in a passive colloidal liquid crystal to form a three-dimensional active nematic. Light-sheet microscopy revealed the temporal evolution of the millimeter-scale structure of these active nematics with single-bundle resolution. The primary topological excitations are extended, charge-neutral disclination loops that undergo complex dynamics and recombination events. Our work suggests a framework for analyzing the nonequilibrium dynamics of bulk anisotropic systems as diverse as driven complex fluids, active metamaterials, biological tissues, and collections of robots or organisms.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Exploring regular and turbulent flow states in active nematic channel flow via Exact Coherent Structures and their invariant manifolds

This work is a unified study of stable and unstable steady states of 2D active nematic channel flow using the framework of Exact Coherent Structures (ECS). ECS are stationary, periodic, quasiperiodic, or traveling wave solutions of the governing equations that, together with their invariant manifolds, organize the dynamics of nonlinear continuum systems. We extend our earlier work on ECS in the preturbulent regime by performing a comprehensive study of stable and unstable ECS for a wide range of activity values spanning the preturbulent and turbulent regimes. In the weakly turbulent regime, we compute more than 200 unstable ECS that co-exist at a single set of parameters, and uncover the role of symmetries in organizing the phase space geometry. We provide conclusive numerical evidence that in the preturbulent regime, generic trajectories shadow a series of unstable ECS before settling onto an attractor. Lastly, our studies hint at shadowing of quasiperiodic type ECS in the turbulent regime.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2024

Active Nematic Ratchet in Asymmetric Obstacle Arrays

We numerically investigate the effect of an asymmetric periodic obstacle array in a two-dimensional active nematic. We find that activity in conjunction with the asymmetry leads to a ratchet effect or unidirectional flow of the fluid along the asymmetry direction. The directional flow is still present even in the active turbulent phase when the gap between obstacles is sufficiently small. We demonstrate that the dynamics of the topological defects transition from flow-mirroring to smectic-like as the gap between obstacles is made smaller, and explain this transition in terms of the pinning of negative winding number defects between obstacles. This also leads to a non-monotonic ratchet effect magnitude as a function of obstacle size, so that there is an optimal obstacle size for ratcheting at fixed activity.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

Vortex Lattices in Active Nematics with Periodic Obstacle Arrays

Here, we numerically model a two-dimensional active nematic confined by a periodic array of fixed obstacles. Even in the passive nematic, the appearance of topological defects is unavoidable due to planar anchoring by the obstacle surfaces. We show that a vortex lattice state emerges as activity is increased, and that this lattice may be tuned from “ferromagnetic” to “antiferromagnetic” by varying the gap size between obstacles. We map the rich variety of states exhibited by the system as a function of distance between obstacles and activity, including a pinned defect state, motile defects, the vortex lattice, and active turbulence. We demonstrate that the flows in the active turbulent phase can be tuned by the presence of obstacles, and explore the effects of a frustrated lattice geometry on the vortex lattice phase.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗