Journal
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
Volume 11, Issue 43, Pages 40533-40542Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b14402
Keywords
micromotor; phototaxis; dynamic collective behavior; light-driven; self-propulsion
Funding
- National Key Research and Development Program of China [2018YFE0306105]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [21574094]
- Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science Technology
- Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD)
- 111 Project, Joint International Research Laboratory of Carbon-Based Functional Materials and Devices
- Fund for Excellent Creative Research Teams of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions
- SRF
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Inspired by the collective behavior of natural living systems, the collective behavior of micromotors has become the research highlight. Although great progress has been made, it is still challenging to control the collective behavior of micromotors. In this paper, we demonstrate a novel near-infrared (NIR) light-powered micromotor consisting of a polystyrene microsphere and a polydopamine core-shell structure (PS@PDA) with concentration-dependent motion direction reversal and dynamic swarming behavior. Among others, a single micromotor exhibits negative phototaxis, whereas a group of micromotors shows positive phototaxis, which can be attributed to the competition between the thermophoretic force and hydrodynamic drag caused by the thermal buoyancy. In addition, because of the reversible hydrogen bonding and pi-pi stacking interactions between the adjacent PS@PDA micromotors, they form aggregation as a result of the positive phototaxis with dynamically controllable shapes tuned by the irradiation position, which makes them potentially attractive for in-solution calligraphy and painting. It is anticipated that the current study may not only provide a new strategy to control the collective behavior of the micromotors, but also promote their application in the practical field.
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