TY - JOUR
T1 - The 2025 motile active matter roadmap
AU - Gompper, Gerhard
AU - Stone, Howard A.
AU - Kurzthaler, Christina
AU - Saintillan, David
AU - Peruani, Fernado
AU - Fedosov, Dmitry A.
AU - Auth, Thorsten
AU - Cottin-Bizonne, Cecile
AU - Ybert, Christophe
AU - Clément, Eric
AU - Darnige, Thierry
AU - Lindner, Anke
AU - Goldstein, Raymond E.
AU - Liebchen, Benno
AU - Binysh, Jack
AU - Souslov, Anton
AU - Isa, Lucio
AU - di Leonardo, Roberto
AU - Frangipane, Giacomo
AU - Gu, Hongri
AU - Nelson, Bradley J.
AU - Brauns, Fridtjof
AU - Marchetti, M. Cristina
AU - Cichos, Frank
AU - Heuthe, Veit Lorenz
AU - Bechinger, Clemens
AU - Korman, Amos
AU - Feinerman, Ofer
AU - Cavagna, Andrea
AU - Giardina, Irene
AU - Jeckel, Hannah
AU - Drescher, Knut
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2025 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.
PY - 2025/2/19
Y1 - 2025/2/19
N2 - Activity and autonomous motion are fundamental aspects of many living and engineering systems. Here, the scale of biological agents covers a wide range, from nanomotors, cytoskeleton, and cells, to insects, fish, birds, and people. Inspired by biological active systems, various types of autonomous synthetic nano- and micromachines have been designed, which provide the basis for multifunctional, highly responsive, intelligent active materials. A major challenge for understanding and designing active matter is their inherent non-equilibrium nature due to persistent energy consumption, which invalidates equilibrium concepts such as free energy, detailed balance, and time-reversal symmetry. Furthermore, interactions in ensembles of active agents are often non-additive and non-reciprocal. An important aspect of biological agents is their ability to sense the environment, process this information, and adjust their motion accordingly. It is an important goal for the engineering of micro-robotic systems to achieve similar functionality. Many fundamental properties of motile active matter are by now reasonably well understood and under control. Thus, the ground is now prepared for the study of physical aspects and mechanisms of motion in complex environments, the behavior of systems with new physical features like chirality, the development of novel micromachines and microbots, the emergent collective behavior and swarming of intelligent self-propelled particles, and particular features of microbial systems. The vast complexity of phenomena and mechanisms involved in the self-organization and dynamics of motile active matter poses major challenges, which can only be addressed by a truly interdisciplinary effort involving scientists from biology, chemistry, ecology, engineering, mathematics, and physics. The 2025 motile active matter roadmap of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter reviews the current state of the art of the field and provides guidance for further progress in this fascinating research area.
AB - Activity and autonomous motion are fundamental aspects of many living and engineering systems. Here, the scale of biological agents covers a wide range, from nanomotors, cytoskeleton, and cells, to insects, fish, birds, and people. Inspired by biological active systems, various types of autonomous synthetic nano- and micromachines have been designed, which provide the basis for multifunctional, highly responsive, intelligent active materials. A major challenge for understanding and designing active matter is their inherent non-equilibrium nature due to persistent energy consumption, which invalidates equilibrium concepts such as free energy, detailed balance, and time-reversal symmetry. Furthermore, interactions in ensembles of active agents are often non-additive and non-reciprocal. An important aspect of biological agents is their ability to sense the environment, process this information, and adjust their motion accordingly. It is an important goal for the engineering of micro-robotic systems to achieve similar functionality. Many fundamental properties of motile active matter are by now reasonably well understood and under control. Thus, the ground is now prepared for the study of physical aspects and mechanisms of motion in complex environments, the behavior of systems with new physical features like chirality, the development of novel micromachines and microbots, the emergent collective behavior and swarming of intelligent self-propelled particles, and particular features of microbial systems. The vast complexity of phenomena and mechanisms involved in the self-organization and dynamics of motile active matter poses major challenges, which can only be addressed by a truly interdisciplinary effort involving scientists from biology, chemistry, ecology, engineering, mathematics, and physics. The 2025 motile active matter roadmap of Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter reviews the current state of the art of the field and provides guidance for further progress in this fascinating research area.
KW - active matter
KW - intelligent matter
KW - microbots
KW - microswimmers
KW - non-equilibrium systems
KW - non-reciprocal interactions
KW - swarming
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85218955624&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1088/1361-648X/adac98
DO - 10.1088/1361-648X/adac98
M3 - Review article
C2 - 39837091
AN - SCOPUS:85218955624
SN - 0953-8984
VL - 37
JO - Journal of Physics Condensed Matter
JF - Journal of Physics Condensed Matter
IS - 14
M1 - 143501
ER -