https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210623194009.htm

A Columbia Engineering team led by Kyle Bishop, professor of chemical engineering, is at the forefront of studying and designing the dynamics of active colloids powered by chemical reactions or by external magnetic, electric, or acoustic fields. The group is developing colloidal robots, in which active components interact and assemble to perform dynamic functions inspired by living cells.

In a new study published today by Physical Review Letters, Bishop's group, working with collaborators at Northwestern University's Center for Bio-Inspired Energy Science (CBES), report that they have demonstrated the use of DC electric fields to drive back-and-forth rotation of micro-particles in electric boundary layers. These particle oscillators could be useful as clocks that coordinate the organization of active matter and even, perhaps, orchestrate the functions of micron-scale robots.