Fig. 3.

Multimodal motion of heterogeneous chains that mimic natural swimmers and propellers. Snapshots in equal time intervals of 0.44 s are shown top to bottom, with the red dashed line denoting a fixed reference position in the x direction. (A) Rotation of a single block chain (14-mer) with a malformed point defect (red arrow, between the fifth and sixth particles) under a 3D precessing field. (B) Helical motion of a diblock chain (54-mer tail with one 2.7-µm particle head) with a long and flexible tail under the same precessing field. Configs. 10 and 11 mimic rotating bacteria flagella. (C) In-plane undulatory motion of a diblock chain (13-mer tail with a 2 × 2.7-µm particle dimer head) under an x–y undulatory field, mimicking tail-whipping sperm. (D) Inchworm motion of a triblock chain (21-mer chain with a 2.7-µm particle head and a 2.7-µm particle tail) under an x–z undulatory field, mimicking arching and stretching inchworms. (E) Sidewinding of a diblock chain (29-mer tail with a 2 × 2.7-µm particle dimer head) under a 3D undulatory magnetic field, mimicking sidewinding snakes. The scale bar (10 µm) applies to all images.