Programmable Hydrodynamics of Active Particles

Self-propelled microparticles create flow fields that determine how they interact with surfaces, external flows, and each other. These flow fields fall into distinct classes--pushers, pullers, and neutral swimmers--each exhibiting fundamentally different collective behaviors. In all existing synthetic systems, this hydrodynamic character is permanently set during fabrication, making it impossible to explore how adaptive switching between these classes might enable new functions or emergent phenomena. Here we demonstrate that the hydrodynamic character of a microswimmer can be programmed and switched on demand. Using patterned laser heating of surface-bound nanoparticles, we create tailored temperature gradients that drive controllable boundary flows at the particle surface. By changing the illumination pattern in real time, we dynamically transform the swimmers flow field continuously tuning from pusher to puller, while the particle continues to swim. Flow measurements confirm quantitative agreement with theory and allow us to simultaneously track how symmetry, power consumption, and efficiency change across modes. This control over hydrodynamic modes opens experimental access to questions that have remained largely theoretical: How do adaptive swimmers respond to crowding or confinement? Can mixtures with tunable pusher-puller ratios reveal new collective states? Our approach provides a platform to address these questions and explore the morphological developments of active matter systems under external physical constraints.