Active and Living Matter

Active matter systems are out of equilibrium systems sourcing their energy from internal driving or external non-thermal sources. These systems range from driven colloidal particles, robots to biological matter like tissues, swimming cells, worms or intracellular organelles.
As these systems consume energy on a microscopic – or single-unit – level, they can exhibit rich behavior from collective motion, motility-induced phase separation or active glassy behavior to mechanical sensing and self-organization.
In the soft matter group we study active and living systems from different perspectives: their complex material responses, emergence of coordinated motion in robotic systems, or propulsion in complex media to test and broaden the boundaries of our current understanding of the interaction of passive and active systems.