20.500.12556/RUL-180815 Propulsion of laser printed polymer micro-rods by a low frequency electric field in nematic liquid crystals We use polarized optical microscopy and confocal fluorescence microscopy to explore electric-field induced swimming of direct laser written polymer microrods in a nematic liquid crystal in the regime of very low frequencies. The rods are of variable aspect ratio and swim in a liquid crystal layer with a thickness comparable to that of the longest rods. We observe significant spatial reorientation of the microrods under an applied electric field, which is characterized by their up and down movement along the applied electric field, oscillation in their tilting with respect to the field, sidewise wobbling of their center of mass and propulsion along the direction perpendicular to the electric field. The velocity of propulsion shows a power law behaviour on the electric field magnitude, $v_x \propto E^{\alpha}$, where $\alpha$ is between 3 and 5 for different aspect ratio rods and can be partially explained by the shear thinning of the viscosity at higher velocity. The time analysis of 3D trajectories of swimming microrods shows a linear coupling of the microrod's center of mass to the applied electric field, and quadratic (i.e. dielectric) coupling of the microrod's tilt to the field, which appears to be the main driving mechanism for microrod propulsion. nematic liquid crystals microswimmers electric field nematski tekoči kristali mikroplavalci električno polje true false true Angleški jezik Slovenski jezik Članek v reviji 2026-03-17 11:44:38 2026-03-17 11:44:40 2026-03-20 14:47:13 0000-00-00 00:00:00 2026 0 0 Str. 2107-2121 no. 10 Vol. 22 2026 0000-00-00 Zaloznikova Objavljeno NiDoloceno 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 0000-00-00 538.9 1744-6848 10.1039/d5sm01104c 268553475 d5sm01104c.pdf d5sm01104c.pdf 1 88E3ED5447A1FF5AC2E7C9BA31BB8F46 a1f39998cc530d2d90f242f7fd4e0c9e92aed0afb46bc6692e46497fce5b5303 3b7f1686-21f1-11f1-b0ab-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=230675 https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2026/sm/d5sm01104c 0 42a567dc-21f1-11f1-b0ab-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=230676 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17514240 0 359ad104-2463-11f1-b0ab-0050569b8976 https://repozitorij.uni-lj.si/Dokument.php?lang=slv&id=231010 Fakulteta za matematiko in fiziko 0 0 0