Abstract

The design and behaviour of artificial microswimmers has garnered significant research interest in recent years. Potential applications such as controlled drug-delivery make them a very promising tool once perfected. However, the vast majority of current designs suffers from a common problem: the swimmers remain in the fluid indefinitely, posing risks of clogging and damage. Inspired by recent design proposals, we investigate the dynamics of a degradable microswimmer. In this seminar, we will give an introduction to the stochastic calculus necessary for the description of a colloid with slowly varying diffusivity, and use this to present and compare three models of the decay of a swimmer, taking into account the nature of the chemical reaction at its surface. From this we can draw valuable conclusions about the practicability of a wide range of materials for the design of such a colloid.