λ-like transition in the dynamics of ratchet gears in active bath

Surface-energy ratchet motor with geometrical symmetry driven by biased random walk

A geometrically symmetric gear with asymmetric surface wettability exhibits one-way spin on a vibrating water bed. On the side face of the gear, a parafilm was coated to create asymmetry in the surface energy. The gear shows fluctuations in both directions within a shorter timescale; however, for a longer timescale, the gear exhibits a one-way spin. This unique motion is generated by a stochastic process with a biased driving force produced by the interaction between the vibrating water surface and the side face of the gear. This new model resembles an active Brownian ratchet. Until now, most ratchet motors, which obtain regular motion from nonthermal fluctuations, utilize a geometrical ratchet structure. However, in this study, the surface energy forms a ratchet that rectifies the noisy motion.

Reversed spin of a ratchet motor on a vibrating water bed

A ratchet gear on a vibrating water bed exhibits a one-way spin. However, the spinning direction is opposite to that of the gear placed on the granular bed. The one-way spin is caused by the surface waves of water. Surface deformation causes transportation of the water element to rotate the gear. The spatial symmetry of the surface wave and gear geometry regulates the rotational torque. In this study, the same ratchet shows reversed motion between the granular and water beds, and the direction is not determined only by the ratchet geometry. The self-organization of the fluid medium caused by small agitation induces a nontrivial inversion of the spinning direction.

Experimental investigation of active noise on a rotor in an active granular bath

In an active bath, besides thermal noise, immersed passive objects also persistently experience collisions from active particles, which are often coarse-grained into a colored active noise with an assumed exponential time correlation. The exponentially correlated active noise extremely simplifies the theoretical description of immersed passive objects but so far lacks direct experimental verification. Here, we experimentally investigate the active noise subjected by a passive rotor confined in an active granular bath. On the basis of Langevin dynamics, we extract the characteristic of the active noise by analyzing the power spectrum of the rotor trajectory. Our experimental results find that the active noise experienced by the granular rotor does show an exponential time correlation to a good extent, even though due to the small experimental system and low collision frequency, the profile of the active noise in our system is non-Gaussian. Our findings give direct experimental evidence, which supports the widely-used active Ornstein-Uhlenbeck particle model in our dry active system.

Rotation reversal of a ratchet gear powered by active particles

Rotation of a gear powered by active particles is numerically investigated in a circular chamber. Due to the nonequilibrium properties of active particles, net gear rotation is achieved in a bath composed of self-propelling particles. Our setup can convert the random motion of active particles into the directional rotation of the ratchet gear. The direction of rotation is determined by the asymmetry of the gear and the persistence length (the ratio of the self-propulsion speed to the rotation diffusion coefficient) of active particles. Remarkably, the direction of rotation for large persistence length is opposite to the direction of rotation for small persistence length. Therefore, for a given asymmetric gear, we can observe the rotation reversal when tuning the system parameters (e.g., the self-propulsion speed, the rotation diffusion coefficient, and the packing fraction of active particles). Our findings are relevant to the experimental pursuit of rectifying random motion to directional motion in active matter.