High-motility visible light-driven Ag/AgCl Janus microswimmers interacting with passive beads

Visible light driven nano/micro swimmers are promising candidates for potential biomedical and environmental applications. However, the previously reported mean squared displacement (MSD) values are low, typically in the range of up to 200 µm2 (when measured over 10 s), even under the favourable UV light illumination.[1,2] This is a severe drawback for the applications where the efficient transport of micromotors within a vessel is demanded.

Here, we demonstrate Ag/AgCl-based spherical Janus micromotors that reveal an efficient propulsion under visible blue light illumination.[3] The proper design of an Ag/AgCl-based micromotor can boost the MSD to a remarkable value of 3000 µm2 (over 10 s) in pure H2O, even when activated with blue light (excitation λ = 450-490 nm). The revealed propulsion of micromotors owns a dependence of the intensity of visible light, which is contributed by the couple plasmonic light absorption of Ag/AgCl and the efficient photochemical decomposition of AgCl. With the motion comparisons of individual Janus particle, small cluster, and large cluster, the effect of suppressed rotational diffusion has been revealed experimentally and in numerical simulations. Furthermore, we show that Ag/AgCl-based Janus micromotors reveal efficient exclusion effect to their surrounding passive polystyrene (PS) beads in pure H2O.[4] The exclusion efficiency is controlled by the number of single Janus PS/Ag/AgCl particles that compose a cluster. Using numerical simulations of the Langevin equations, we gain a fundamental understanding not only the diffusion constants, but also the system-specific interaction parameter between Janus motors and passive beads.

1. Ibele, M., et al., Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2009, 48, 3308.
2. Simmchen, J., et al., ChemNanoMat 2017, 3, 65.
3. Wang, X., et al., Small 2018, 14, 1803613.
4. Wang, X., et al., Small 2018, 14, 1802537.