Steady state propulsion of isotropic active colloids along a wall

Abstract

Active drops emit/absorb chemical solutes, whose concentration gradients cause interfacial flows driving their own transport and the propulsion of the droplet. Such non-linear coupling enables active drops to achieve directed self-propulsion despite their isotropy, if the ratio of advective-to-diffusive solute transport, i.e. the Peclet number Pe, is larger than a finite critical threshold. In most experimental situations, active drops are non-neutrally buoyant and thus swim along rigid surfaces; yet theoretical descriptions of their non-linear motion focus almost exclusively on unbounded domains to circumvent geometric complexity. To overcome this gap in understanding, we investigate the spontaneous emergence and nonlinear saturation of propulsion of an isotropic phoretic colloid along a rigid wall, to which it is confined by a constant external force (e.g., gravity). This phoretic particle model is considered here as a limiting case for a viscous active drop. We show that, for moderate Pe, the particle motion and associated chemical transport reduce the chemically-induced wall repulsion, thereby causing the particle to swim progressively closer to the wall as Pe increases. Far from hindering self-propulsion, this reduction in the particle-wall separation is accompanied by a wall-induced efficient rearrangement of the solute concentration gradients driving the particle, thus augmenting its swimming speed.