Interaction of a Chemically Propelled Nanomotor with a Chemical Wave

摘要

Self-propulsion on small scales is an ubiquitous phenomenon in biology. Bacteria and other microorganisms swim in order to obtain food or to respond to stimuli, molecular motors like ATP synthase are the engines that power swimming motion, and kinesin and other molecular motors are essential for active transport in the cell, participate in the DNA replication process and perform a variety of other essential tasks.More recently, there has been considerable interest in synthetic nano- and micrometer-scale self-propelled objects. Chemists have fabricated a variety of nanoma-chines that either swim by unsymmetrical motions driven by external fields or utilize chemical reactions to effect directed motion.