Sommaire:

Most colloidal interactions can be tuned by changing properties of the medium. Here we show that activating the colloidal particles with random self-propulsion can induce giant effective interactions between large objects immersed in such a suspension. By performing Brownian dynamics simulations, we systematically study the effective force between two hard walls in a 2D suspension of self-propelled (active)colloidal hard spheres. We find that at relatively high densities, the active colloidal hard spheres can form a dynamic crystalline bridge, which induces a strong oscillating long range dynamic wetting repulsion between the walls. With decreasing the density of active colloids, the dynamic bridge gradually breaks, and an intriguing long range dynamic depletion attraction starts dominating the effective interaction between the two walls. The two long range forces oppose each other, and the effective interaction can be tuned from a long range repulsion into a long range attraction by reducing the density of active particles. Our results open up new possibilities to manipulate the motion and assembly of microscopic objects by using active matter.

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