A Path toward Inherently Asymmetric Micromotors

Abstract

Since the highly cited paper by Purcell postulating the “Scallop theorem” almost 50 years ago, asymmetry is an unavoidable part of micromotors. It is frequently induced by self‐shadowing or self‐masking, resulting in so‐called Janus colloids. This strategy works very reliably, but turns into a bottleneck once up‐scaling becomes important. Herein, existing alternatives are discussed and a novel synthetic pathway yielding active swimmers in a one‐pot synthesis is presented. To understand the resulting mobility from a single material, the geometric asymmetry is evaluated using a python based algorithm and this process is automated in an open access tool.

Keywords

• large-scale synthesis
• microswimmers
• photocatalysts
• self-asymmetric micromotors
• TiO2