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Self-Reconfiguring Active Colloidal Molecules in Soft Matter Physics

Synthetic microswimmers built from a silica core and orbiting polystyrene satellites under an AC electric field, in which internal satellite diffusion continuously reconfigures the molecule. This reconfiguration decouples the molecule's reorientation from its rigid-body rotational diffusion and creates effective anti-alignment interactions that let dense suspensions avoid clustering, motility-induced phase separation and flocking.

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Self-reconfiguring colloidal active matter

Active colloidal molecules assembled under a 1 kHz AC electric field from a large silica core surrounded by small polystyrene 'satellite' particles. Electrohydrodynamic flows draw the satellites to t…