JONES1	Microswimmers
Type	Theory, Modelling
#students	1
Orientation	Why is the scientific problem of interest at all? Self-motile microscopic swimmers such as bacteria are capable of directed motion through a fluid in response to, e.g. a chemical gradient. For such micron-sized objects the combination of low Reynold’s number and Brownian motion determine the swimming strategy that will be effective and the swimmer’s trajectory.
How	How is the research going to shed light on the given problem?. Recently, several artificial microswimmers have been demonstrated that are powered by asymmetric chemical reactions. These have been suggested as both model systems for the understanding of motile cells, and as tools for pick-up and delivery of nano-scale objects.
What	What is the specific thing that the student will do, and how does it fit inside the overall project? The aim of this project is to model the dynamics of such autonomously-propelled ‘active colloids’ in response to a structured environment and their interactions with other microswimmers.
Special Knowledge	This project will require strong programming skills (in, e.g. Matlab).
Supervisor	Dr Phil Jones philip.jones@ucl.ac.uk
References (optional)	Suggested reading: S. J. Ebbens & J.R. Howse ‘In pursuit of propulsion at the nanoscale’, Soft Matter 6 726-738 (2010)