Description du projet
Tester le comportement collectif des agents actifs grâce à la lumière
La matière active comprend les systèmes dont les constituants fondamentaux dissipent de l’énergie pour exercer des forces les uns sur les autres. Depuis les moteurs moléculaires jusqu’aux colonies de bactéries, en passant par les bancs de poissons et les foules humaines, les agents actifs sont présents à toutes les échelles dans la nature. Ces systèmes se trouvent intrinsèquement dans une situation de non-équilibre thermique. Les agents d’excitation interne représentent plus fidèlement la matière active que ceux qui sont excités par des forces externes, mais il n’existe toujours aucun moyen de tester leur réponse à des stimuli externes. Financé par le programme Actions Marie Skłodowska-Curie, le projet PhotoActive vise à concevoir des agents macroscopiques autopropulsés qui sont excités en interne, mais mus par un stimulus externe. L’idée est de développer et de mettre en œuvre des particules dont la structure s’apparente à celle d’un arthropode à six pattes (Hexbug) et dont l’énergie est générée par une cellule photovoltaïque.
Objectif
In the last years, there has been an outstanding growing interest in active matter. In these complex systems, a number of interacting agents consume and convert energy into mechanical motion, representing nice examples of out-of-equilibrium behavior. Such systems are important because they can be found in nature ranging from the microscopic to the macroscopic scale, e.g. molecular motors, cells, bird flocks, or human crowds. Interestingly, and despite the obvious differences among the agents that compose these systems, common behavioral patterns have been identified such as collective motion, anomalous diffusion, segregation, or clogging in the flow through constrictions. Aiming for a better understanding of these complex active systems a reductionist strategy is necessary, and this is why the study of active granular matter (very simple self-propelled agents that interact uniquely by contacts) is widely acknowledged.
Within active grains, we can distinguish between internally excited ones (such as Hexbugs) or externally forced ones. Certainly, the former have the advantage to closely resemble real active matter but, to date, also have the drawback of not allowing testing their response to external stimulus. My proposal, PhotoActive, aims to fill this gap by designing novel macroscopic self-propelled agents that are internally excited but can be driven by an external stimulus as it occurs with all natural systems. The idea is to develop and implement Hexbug-like particles whose source of energy comes from a photovoltaic cell. The great advantage of these novel agents concerns the versatility that provides using a fully controllable illumination panel with which we can impose spatial intensity gradients or temporally evolving patterns. In this way, and applying an interdisciplinary approach involving experiments, numerical modeling, and simulations, we ambition boosting the existing understanding of active matter systems.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Régime de financement
HORIZON-AG-UN - HORIZON Unit GrantCoordinateur
31080 Pamplona
Espagne