arXiv subjects

G. H. Philipp Nguyen

Publications and source records attributed to G. H. Philipp Nguyen.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Nascent biofilms on soft surfaces

Soft surfaces, spanning vastly different environmental and biomedical settings, are frequently colonised by surface-associated bacteria. Yet, how soft surfaces govern bacterial dynamics and their self-organisation into colonies remains poorly understood. Using experiments and agent-based modelling, we report the self-organisation of bacterial cells into nascent biofilms on soft substrates. By tuning the elastic modulus over two orders of magnitude, we show that the colony morphology, spreading dynamics and collective behaviour depend on the substrate stiffness, wherein softer surfaces promote slowly expanding, geometrically anisotropic, multilayered colonies, while harder substrates drive rapid, isotropic expansion of bacterial monolayers before multilayer structures emerge. Supported a cell mechanical model and two-dimensional agent-based simulations, our results identify that anisotropic drag forces on soft substrates, emerging due to local deformations, underpin colony anisotropy and swift verticalisation. In contrast, reduced drag on hard surfaces allows rapid expansion of monolayers, thus delaying the transition to a multilayer structure. Surface compliance, a key but overlooked determinant of early-stage biofilm development, could be harnessed to engineer biofilm structures and dynamics for nature-inspired and biomedical applications.

physics.bio-ph↗

arXiv2024

Accessing the Free Expansion of a Crystalline Colloidal Drop by Optical Experiments

We study poly-crystalline spherical drops of an aqueous suspension of highly charged colloidal spheres exposed to a colloid-free aqueous environment. Crystal contours were obtained from standard optical imaging. The crystal spheres first expand to nearly four times their initial volume before slowly shrinking due to dilution-induced melting. Exploiting coherent multiple-scattering by (110) Bragg reflecting crystals, time-dependent density profiles were recorded deep within the drop interior. These show a continuously flattening radial density gradient and a decreasing central density. Expansion curves and density profiles are qualitatively consistent with theoretical expectations based on dynamical density functional theory for the expansion of a spherical crystallite made of charged Brownian spheres. We anticipate that our study opens novel experimental access to densi-ty determination in turbid crystals.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2023

Collective mechano-response dynamically tunes cell-size distributions in growing bacterial colonies

Mechanical stresses stemming from environmental factors are a key determinant of cellular behavior and physiology. Yet, the role of self-induced biomechanical stresses in growing bacterial colonies has remained largely unexplored. Here, we demonstrate how collective mechanical forcing plays an important role in the dynamics of the cell size of growing bacteria. We observe that the measured elongation rate of well-nourished \textit{Escherichia coli} cells decreases over time, depending on the free area around each individual, and associate this behavior with the response of the growing cells to mechanical stresses. Via a cell-resolved model accounting for the feedback of collective forces on individual cell growth, we quantify the effect of this mechano-response on the structure and composition of growing bacterial colonies, including the local environment of each cell. Finally, we predict that a mechano-cross-response between competing bacterial strains with distinct growth rates affects their size distributions.

cond-mat.soft↗

arXiv2021

Active Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model for self-propelled particles with inertia

Self-propelled particles, which convert energy into mechanical motion, exhibit inertia if they have a macroscopic size or move inside a gaseous medium, in contrast to micron-sized overdamped particles immersed in a viscous fluid. Here we study an extension of the active Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model, in which self-propulsion is described by colored noise, to access these inertial effects. We summarize and discuss analytical solutions of the particle's mean-squared displacement and velocity autocorrelation function for several settings ranging from a free particle to various external influences, like a linear or harmonic potential and coupling to another particle via a harmonic spring. Taking into account the particular role of the initial particle velocity in a nonstationary setup, we observe all dynamical exponents between zero and four. After the typical intertial time, determined by the particle's mass, the results inherently revert to the behavior of an overdamped particle with the exception of the harmonically confined systems, in which the overall displacement is enhanced by inertia. We further consider an underdamped model for an active particle with a time-dependent mass, which critically affects the displacement in the intermediate time-regime. Most strikingly, for a sufficiently large rate of mass accumulation, the particle's motion is completely governed by inertial effects as it remains superdiffusive for all times.

cond-mat.soft↗