Abstract
We show both numerically and analytically that a chemically patterned active pore can act as a micro- or nanopump for fluids, even if it is fore-aft symmetric. This is possible due to a spontaneous symmetry breaking which occurs when advection rather than diffusion is the dominant mechanism of solute transport. We further demonstrate that, for pumping and tuning the flow rate, a combination of geometrical and chemical inhomogeneities is required. For certain parameter values, the flow is unsteady, and persistent oscillations with a tunable frequency appear. Finally, we find that the flow exhibits convection rolls and hence promotes mixing in the low Reynolds number regime.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 188003 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Physical Review Letters |
| Volume | 129 |
| Issue number | 18 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Oct 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:P. M. and J. H. acknowledge funding by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—Project-ID 416229255—SFB 1411 and Project-ID 431791331—SFB 1452.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by the Max Planck Society.