Flexicles—Cellular Assemblies of Colloidal Particles with Emergent Robotic Function

The growing ability to design and synthesize patchy and self-propelled particles of arbitrary shape creates the potential for realizing active complex particle assemblies with emergent behavior that mimics biological systems such as unicellular organisms. In this talk, we propose the “<i>flexicle</i>” – a deformable cellular superstructure composed of self-propelled particles encapsulated by a flexible membrane<i>.</i> Using molecular dynamics simulations, we investigate the collective behavior of many-flexicle systems, demonstrating how shape deformability of individual flexicles gives rise to a diversity of motility-induced phase separation phenomena and the spontaneous flow of flexicles, reminiscent of cellular migration. We also show how individual flexicle “robots” are able to navigate through a series of different complex geometries. Our findings demonstrate a new, experimentally realizable, bio-inspired class of complex particle system capable of novel behavior and function.