Abstract
We derive general equations of motions for highly-confined particles that perform quasi-two-dimensional motion in Hele-Shaw channels, which we solve analytically, aiming to derive design principles for self-steering particles. Based on symmetry properties of a particle, its equations of motion can be simplified, where we retrieve an earlier-known equation of motion for the orientation of dimer particles consisting of disks (Uspal et al 2013 Nat. Commun. 4), but now in full generality. Subsequently, these solutions are compared with particle trajectories that are obtained numerically. For mirror-symmetric particles, excellent agreement between the analytical and numerical solutions is found. For particles lacking mirror symmetry, the analytic solutions provide means to classify the motion based on particle geometry, while we find that taking the side-wall interactions into account is important to accurately describe the trajectories.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 224002 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | Journal of Physics Condensed Matter |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue number | 22 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 9 May 2018 |
Funding
This work is part of the D-ITP consortium, a program of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) that is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW). We acknowledge financial support from an NWO-VICI grant. SS acknowledges funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 656327.
Keywords
- Hele-Shaw channels
- microfluidics
- self-steering particles