4–6 Oct 2023
Biozentrum, University of Würzburg
Europe/Berlin timezone

Structural Colour from Bacteria Collective Motion

Not scheduled
20m
Room A101 (Biozentrum, University of Würzburg)

Room A101

Biozentrum, University of Würzburg

Am Hubland
Contributed talk (20 min)

Speaker

Junwei Wang (University of Cambridge)

Description

We report a type of marine, non-pathogenic bacteria, Flavobacterium Iridescent 1 (IR1), that grows into a colony in active liquid crystal phase with intense structural colour. We show that these rod-like gliding bacteria organize hierarchically, from bacteria clusters, to monolayer, multi-layers and finally into large scale chiral vortices up to one millimeter in diameter. We demonstrate that the bacteria motility gives rise to three-dimensional ordered nanostructure that constructively reflects incident light, resulting in the bright iridescent colour observed in the colony [1-2]. We also illustrate how the bacteria colony adapts to confinement of different geometries.

Primary author

Junwei Wang (University of Cambridge)

Presentation materials

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