The main focus of this part of the research is the manipulation of microparticles. This includes  active microrheology with optical tweezers that is used for studying biological samples.

In combination with varying external magnetic field, we study interactions between superparamagentic microparticles and formation of different stable mesophases, depending on the precessing magnetic field cone opening angle. Artificial swimmers were created and their motion observed in microfluidic channels. Thermal motion of particles is also studied, including fabrication of integrated microfluidic thermal pumps based on thermoviscous expansion and thermal tweezers, which can be used for single nanoparticle manipulation.

Microfluidic arrays are produced and used to study a variety of systems, including liquid crystals and biological samples.

Selected references:

EMERŠIČ, Tadej, ZHANG, Rui, KOS, Žiga, ČOPAR, Simon, OSTERMAN, Natan, PABLO, Juan J. de, TKALEC, Uroš. Sculpting stable structures in pure liquids. Science advances, ISSN 2375-2548, Feb. 2019, vol. 5, art. no. eaav4283, 8 str., ilustr., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aav4283.

XING, Fulin, XUN, Shuang, ZHU, Yanhan, HU, Fen, DREVENŠEK OLENIK, Irena, ZHANG, Xinzheng, PAN, Leiting, XU, Jingjun. Microfluidic assemblies designed for assessment of drug effects on deformability of human erythrocytes. Biochemical and biophysical research communications, ISSN 0006-291X, 2019, vol. 512, iss. 2, str. 303-309, ilustr., doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2019.03.066.

VILFAN, Mojca, OSTERMAN, Natan, VILFAN, Andrej. Magnetically driven omnidirectional artificial microswimmers. Soft matter, ISSN 1744-683X, 2018, vol. 14, no. 17, str. 3415-3422, doi: 10.1039/C8SM00230D.

ŠKARABOT, Miha, OSTERMAN, Natan, MUŠEVIČ, Igor. Optothermally driven colloidal transport in a confined nematic liquid crystal. Soft matter, ISSN 1744-683X, 2017, vol. 13, no. 13, str. 2448-2452, doi: 10.1039/c7sm00136c.

MOHORIČ, Tomaž, KOKOT, Gašper, OSTERMAN, Natan, SNEZHKO, Alexey, VILFAN, Andrej, BABIČ, Dušan, DOBNIKAR, Jure. Dynamic assembly of magnetic colloidal vortices. Langmuir, ISSN 0743-7463, 2016, vol. 32, no. 20, str. 5094-5101, doi: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.6b00722.

OSTERMAN, Natan, BRAUN, Dieter. Thermooptical molecule sieve on the microscale. Applied physics letters, ISSN 0003-6951. [Print ed.], 2015, vol. 106, no. 7, str. 073508 -1-073508 -5, doi: 10.1063/1.4907357.

MÜLLER, Kathrin, OSTERMAN, Natan, BABIČ, Dušan, LIKOS, Christos N., DOBNIKAR, Jure, NIKOUBASHMAN, Arash. Pattern formation and coarse-graining in two-dimensional colloids driven by multiaxial magnetic fields. Langmuir, ISSN 0743-7463, 2014, vol. 30, issue 18, str. 5088-5096, ilustr. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/la500896e, doi: 10.1021/la500896e.