Related papers: Electrostatics and aggregation: how charge can tur…
Periodic field patterns of atoms and their charges/spins/orbits emerge in crystals, forming novel states of matter called emergent crystals (ECs). In recent years, they are observed in diverse systems such as skyrmion crystals in…
We study the effective electrostatic interactions between a pair of charged colloidal particles without salt ions while the system is confined in two dimensions. In particular we use a simplified model to elucidate the effects of rotational…
For single-file translocations of a charged macromolecule through a narrow pore, the crucial step of arrival of an end at the pore suffers from free energy barriers, arising from changes in intrachain electrostatic interaction, distribution…
Using a thermodynamic integration scheme, we compute the free energy cost per unit area, $\gamma$, of forming an interface between a crystal and a frozen structured wall, formed by particles frozen into the same equilibrium structure as the…
Gas-phase microdroplets have recently demonstrated exceptional chemical properties via suspected mechanisms such as contact electrification and surface charge pinning, producing high surface electric fields. Here, microdroplets are injected…
Colloidal gels are widely applied in industry due to their rheological character -- no flow takes place below the yield stress. Such property enables gels to maintain uniform distribution in practical formulations; otherwise, solid…
We consider gelation of colloidal particles in suspension after cessation of shear flow. Particle aggregation is driven by a temperature-tunable attractive potential which controls the growth of clusters under isothermal conditions. A…
Deposition of particles while flowing past constrictions is a ubiquitous phenomenon observed in diverse systems. Some common examples are jamming of salt crystals near the orifice of saltshakers, clogging of filter systems, gridlock in…
Static charge in and on the surface of pyroelectric crystals of LiNbO3 and LiTaO3 in a dilute gas has been shown to ionize gas molecules via electron tunneling. The released electrons and positive ions are focused and accelerated according…
Dendrites formation in the course of crystallization presents very general phenomenon, which is analyzed in details via the example of ice crystals growth in deionized water. Neutral molecules of water on the surface are combined into the…
We investigate spherical macroions in the strong Coulomb coupling regime within the primitive model in salt-free environment. We first show that the ground state of an isolated colloid is naturally overcharged by simple electrostatic…
Monopole-like electrostatic interactions are ubiquitous in biology and condensed matter, but they are often screened by counter-ions and cannot be switched from attractive to repulsive. In colloidal science, where the prime goal is to…
We study a model in which particles interact with short-ranged attractive and long-ranged repulsive interactions, in an attempt to model the equilibrium cluster phase recently discovered in sterically stabilized colloidal systems in the…
The binding of clusters of metal nanoparticles is partly electrostatic. We address difficulties in calculating the electrostatic energy when high charging energies limit the total charge to a single quantum, entailing unequal potentials on…
We perform Monte Carlo simulations of a simplified two-dimensional model for colloidal hard spheres in an external uniaxial AC electric field. Experimentally, the external field induces dipole moments in the colloidal particles, which in…
Numerical simulations of hydrated proteins show that protein hydration shells are polarized into a ferroelectric cluster with a large magnitude of its average dipole moment. The emergence of this new mesophase dramatically alters the…
We investigate the effects of the reversal of the gravitational field onto a sedimented and partially crystallised suspension of nearly-hard sphere colloids. We analyse the structural changes that take place during the melting of the…
Colloidal glasses form from hard spheres, nearly hard spheres, ellipsoids and platelets or their attractive variants have been studied in detail. Complementing and checking theoretical approaches and simulations, the many different types of…
Depletion interactions arise from entropic forces, and their ability to induce aggregation and even ordering of colloidal particles through self-assembly is well established, especially for spherical colloids. We vary the size and…
We exploit the controlled drying of millimeter-sized gel beads to investigate isotropic compression of colloidal fractal gels. Using a custom dynamic light scattering setup, we demonstrate that stresses imposed by drying on the bead surface…