Self-assembly of active bifunctional Brownian particles†

In this work, with the intent of exploring the out-of-equilibrium polymerization of active patchy particles in linear chains, we study a suspension of active bifunctional Brownian particles (ABBPs). At all studied temperatures and densities, ABBPs self-assemble in aggregating chains, as opposed to the uniformly space-distributed chains observed in the corresponding passive systems. The main effect of activity, other than inducing chain aggregation, is to reduce the chain length and favour the alignment of the propulsion vectors in the bonding process. At low activities, attraction dominates over activity in the bonding process, causing self-assembly to occur randomly regardless of the particle orientations. Interestingly, we find that at the lowest temperature, as density increases, chains aggregate forming a novel state: MISP, i.e., motility-induced spirals, where spirals are characterised by a finite angular velocity. In contrast, at the highest temperature, density and activity, chains aggregate forming a different novel state (a spinning crystalline cluster) characterised by a compact and hexagonally ordered structure, both translating and rotating. The rotation arises from an effective torque generated by the presence of competing domains where particles self-propel in the same direction.