Self-organization of active particles by quorum sensing rules

Many microorganisms regulate their behaviour according to the density of neighbours. Such quorum sensing is important for the communication and organisation within bacterial populations. In contrast to living systems, where quorum sensing is determined by biochemical processes, the behaviour of synthetic active particles can be controlled by external fields. Accordingly they allow to investigate how variations of a density-dependent particle response affect their self-organisation. Here we experimentally and numerically demonstrate this concept using a suspension of light-activated active particles whose motility is individually controlled by an external feedback-loop, realised by a particle detection algorithm and a scanning laser system. Depending on how the particles’ motility varies with the density of neighbours, the system self-organises into aggregates with different size, density and shape. Since the individual particles’ response to their environment is almost freely programmable, this allows for detailed insights on how communication between motile particles affects their collective properties.