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APS » Journals » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 99 » Issue 17
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 99, 178103 (2007) [4 pages]

Chemotaxis of Nonbiological Colloidal Rods

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Yiying Hong1, Nicole M. K. Blackman2, Nathaniel D. Kopp2, Ayusman Sen1,2,*, and Darrell Velegol2,3,*
1Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
2Materials Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
3Department of Chemical Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA

Received 21 June 2007; published 26 October 2007

Chemotaxis is the movement of organisms toward or away from a chemical attractant or toxin by a biased random walk process. Here we describe the first experimental example of chemotaxis outside biological systems. Platinum-gold rods 2.0  μm long exhibit directed movement toward higher hydrogen peroxide concentrations through “active diffusion.” Brownian dynamics simulations reveal that no “temporal sensing” algorithm, commonly attributed to bacteria, is necessary; rather, the observed chemotaxis can be explained by random walk physics in a gradient of the active diffusion coefficient.

© 2007 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.178103
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.99.178103
PACS:
87.17.Jj, 82.45.Yz, 82.65.+r

*To whom correspondence should be addressed:

asen@psu.edu

velegol@psu.edu

 
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