From vortex ratchets to rectification of self-propelled swimmers

A. V. SILHANEK; H. A. GUIDOBALDI; Y. JEYARAM; I. BERDAKIN; V. V. MOSHCHALKOV; C. A. CONDAT; V. I. MARCONI; L.C. GIOJALAS

Madrid

Workshop; NanoSC "Advances in nanostructured superconductors: materials, properties and theory"; 2014

During  the  last  decades,  the  mastering  of  flux  quanta  in  superconductors  has  received  a growing attention in the scientific community due to the large spectrum of possible analogies between  fluxon  physics  and  other  apparently  disconnected  topics.  For  instance,  flux avalanches  in  superconducting  thin  films  resemble  the  crack  propagation  in  solids  or  the electrical  discharges  during  dielectric  breakdown,  whereas  a  flux  lattice  interacting  with  a periodic substrate could be thought of as a model of charge‐density‐waves.  Among  the  most  remarkable  achievements  of  flux  control  we  find  the  flux  ratchets,  a mechanism allowing to obtain average flux motion along a predefined direction with zero‐mean excitations. This is a basic element for the development of more complex devices such as  flux  pumps  and  magnetic  flux  lenses.  In  this  talk,  I  will  show  how  the  concepts  of  flux rectification  has  been  extended  to  self‐propelled  particles,  such  as  human  sperm  cells population,  for  which  it  is  not  necessary  an  external  power  supply  to  achieve  separation, concentration or sorting of particles.