Microscopic Swimming (Building Bacterial Robots)

Physics

Pfaller, Jake

Lee, Jin

Conklin, Mackenzie

Rodenborn, Bruce (Mentor)

Philip Lockett (Mentor)

English

The swimming of microorganisms is typically studied using biological experiments or numerical simulations because of the difficulty of making microscopic measurements of forces and torques. Our research group uses robots that are about 10 cm in size, but we cannot use water as the fluid because of the size difference. Instead, we use a highly viscous silicone oil that is 100,000X more viscous than water. We can then measure the forces and torques more easily since microorganisms that are typically ∼ 10 µ m. Our models let us explore fundamental theories and compare them to the laboratory data.