Related papers: Phase separation transition in liquids and polymer…
When immiscible liquids are subject to electric fields interfacial forces arise due to a difference in the permittivity or the conductance of the liquids, and these forces lead to shape change in droplets or to interfacial instabilities. In…
We consider the influence of electric field gradients on the phase behavior of nonpolar binary mixtures. Small fields give rise to smooth composition profiles, whereas large enough fields lead to a phase-separation transition. The critical…
When a liquid mixture is subjected to external electric fields, ionic screening leads to field gradients. We point out that if the mixture is initially in the homogeneous phase, this screening can bring about a robust phase-separation…
We deduce the mixing-demixing phase diagram for binary liquid mixtures in an electric field for various electrode geometries and arbitrary constitutive relation for the dielectric constant. By focusing on the behavior of the liquid-liquid…
The structure and thermodynamic state of a system changes under the influence of external electric fields. Neutral systems are characterized by their dielectric constant epsilon, while charged ones also by their charge distribution. In this…
We review recent theoretical advances on controlling the fluid-fluid phase transition with electric fields. Using a mean-field approach, we compare the effects of uniform versus non-uniform electric fields, and show how non-uniform fields…
We study the thermodynamic behavior of nonpolar liquid mixtures in the vicinity of curved charged objects, such as electrodes or charged colloids. For small enough charge on the object, or equivalently, small potential, the…
We consider the liquid-vapor type phase transition for fluids confined within spatially periodic external fields. For a fluid in d=3 dimensions, the periodic field induces an additional phase, characterized by large density modulations…
Insoluble surfactant monolayers at the air/water interface undergo a phase transition from a high-temperature homogeneous state to a low-temperature demixed state, where dilute and dense phases coexist. Alternatively, the transition from a…
We investigate the structure and phase behavior of the Stockmayer fluid in the presence of nonuniform electric fields using molecular simulation. We find that an initially homogeneous vapor phase undergoes a local phase separation in a…
Demixing of binary liquids is a ubiquitous transition, which is explained using a well-established thermodynamic formalism that requires equality of intensive thermodynamics parameters across the phase boundaries. Demixing transitions also…
Living and engineered systems rely on the stable coexistence of two interspersed liquid phases. Yet surface tension drives their complete separation. Here we show that stable droplets of uniform and tuneable size can be produced through…
Colloid-polymer mixtures may undergo either fluid-fluid phase separation or gelation. This depends on the depth of the quench (polymer concentration) and polymer-colloid size ratio. We present a real-space study of dynamics in phase…
We consider the coupling between an external electric field and dissociated ions embedded in anisotropic polarizable media such as block copolymers. We argue that the presence of such ions can induce strong morphological changes and even…
Colloidal suspensions with free polymer coils which are larger than the colloidal particles are considered. The polymer-colloid interaction is modeled by an extension of the Asakura-Oosawa model. Phase separation occurs into dilute and…
A phase-field approach to the dynamics of liquid-solid interfaces that evolve due to precipitation and/or dissolution is presented. For the purpose of illustration and comparison with other methods, phase field simulations were carried out…
We study the consequences of Coulomb interactions on a system undergoing a putative first order phase transition. In two dimensions (2D), near the critical density, the system is universally unstable to the formation of new intermediate…
We construct a phase field model including hydrodynamics and elasticity in one-component systems. It can be used to investigate solid-liquid and liquid-liquid phase transitions. Upon first-order phase transition, a velocity field is induced…
The possibility to induce demixing in a colloidal mixture by adding small polymers, or other equivalent depletant agents, is theoretically investigated. By use of Mean Field Theory, suitably generalized to deal with short range effective…
Globular proteins as well as recently synthesized colloids engineered with differently charged surface regions have in common a reduced bonding valence and a complex interaction pattern dominated by like-charge attraction and…