Related papers: Onion structures induced by hydrophilic and hydrop…
We propose a phenomenological model for the multi-lamellar vesicles (onions) formation induced by shear flow. In a nonionic surfactant (C$_{12}$E$_4$) system, onion phases under a fixed shear flow within a certain range show the…
Phase transitions in polar binary mixtures can be drastically altered even by a small amount of salt. This is because the preferential solvation strongly depends on the ambient composition. Together with a summary of our research in this…
Antagonistic salts are composed of hydrophilic and hydrophobic ions. In a mixture solvent (water-oil) such ion pairs are preferentially attracted to water or oil, giving rise to a coupling between the charge density and the composition.…
A theory is presented for the behavior of an array of multi-lamellar vesicles (the onion phase) upon addition of solvent. A unique feature of this system is the possibility to sustain pressure gradients by tension in the lamellae. Tension…
We report on the rheology of a lamellar lyotropic surfactant solution (SDS/dodecane/pentanol/water), and identify a discontinuous transition between two shear thinning regimes which correspond to the low stress lamellar phase and the more…
Dynamic equations are presented for polar binary mixtures containing ions in the presence of the preferential solvation. In one-phase states, we calculate the dynamic structure factor of the composition accounting for the ion motions.…
Contact experiments have been performed between an onion lamellar phase and brine, in the SDS/octanol/brine system. Using video microscopy we have studied the nonequilibrium behaviour of the swelling and dissolution process of onions.…
Coexistence of various ordered chaotic states in a Hamiltonian system is studied with the use of a symplectic coupled map lattice. Besides the clustered states for the attractive interaction, a novel chaotic ordered state is found for a…
The nucleation of crystals from the liquid melt is often characterized by a competition between different crystalline structures or polymorphs, and can result in nuclei with heterogeneous compositions. These mixed-phase nuclei can display…
Liquid electrolytes adsorbed at the surface of metallic electrodes display a multitude of structures that can largely differ from the parent bulk system, both in terms of composition and local organization. In particular, the existence of…
We study homogeneous nucleation from a deeply quenched metastable liquid to a spatially modulated phase. We find, for a general class of density functional theories, that the universally favored nucleating droplet in dimensions $d \geq 3$…
We show that a metastable multilamellar vesicle (`onion'), in contact with excess solvent, can spontaneously deplete solute molecules from its interior through an unusual, entropy-driven mechanism. Fluctuation entropy is gained as the…
We present simulation results and an explanatory theory on how antagonistic salts affect the spinodal decomposition of binary fluid mixtures. We find that spinodal decomposition is arrested and complex structures form only when…
Metal oxides such as VO$_2$ undergo structural transitions to low-symmetry phases characterized by intricate crystalline order, accompanied by rich electronic behavior. We derive a minimal ionic Hamiltonian based on symmetry and local…
The speculated presence of monomolecular lamellae of antagonistic salts in oil-water mixtures has left several open questions besides their hypothetical existence, including their microscopic structure and stabilization mechanism. Here, we…
We review our recent studies on selective solvation effects in phase separation in polar binary mixtures with a small amount of solutes. Such hydrophilic or hydrophobic particles are preferentially attracted to one of the solvent…
The forces between charged macromolecules, usually given in terms of osmotic pressure, are highly affected by the intervening ionic solution. While in most theoretical studies the solution is treated as a homogeneous structureless…
Equilibrium magnetization states in thin spherical shells of a magnetically soft ferromagnet are determined by the competition between two interactions: (i) The local exchange interaction favours the more homogeneous onion state with…
The control of the magnetization inversion dynamics is one of the main challenges driving the design of new nanostructured magnetic materials for magnetoelectronic applications. Nanoparticles with onion-like architecture offer a unique…
We calculate the ion and composition distributions around colloid particles in an aqueous mixture, accounting for preferential adsorption, electrostatic interaction, selective solvation among ions and polar molecules, and…