Related papers: Solvation Effects in Phase Transitions in Soft Mat…
A hydrophobic constriction site can act as an efficient barrier to ion and water permeation if its diameter is less than the diameter of an ion's first hydration shell. This hydrophobic gating mechanism is thought to operate in a number of…
A mesoscopic theory for water-in-salt electrolytes combining density functional and field-theoretic methods is developed in order to explain the unexpectedly large period of the oscillatory decay of the disjoining pressure observed in…
We present a new type of phase-change behavior relevant for information storage applications, that can be observed in 2D systems with cluster-forming ability. The temperature-based control of the ordering in 2D particle systems depends on…
The present article experimentally and theoretically probes the evaporation kinetics of sessile saline droplets. Observations reveal that presence of solvated ions leads to modulated evaporation kinetics, which is further a function of…
The subtle interplay between critical phenomena and electrostatics is investigated by considering the effective force acting on two parallel walls confining a near-critical binary liquid mixture with added salt. The ion-solvent coupling can…
We experimentally study the effects of salt concentration on the flowing dynamics of dense suspensions of micrometer-sized silica particles in microfluidic drums. In pure water, the particles are fully sedimented under their own weight, but…
Liquid-liquid phase separation has recently emerged as an important topic in the context of cellular organization. Within this context, there are multiple poorly understood features; for instance hints of critical behavior in the plasma…
We show that hydrophilic ions present in a confined, near-critical aqueous mixture can lead to an attraction between like charge surfaces with opposing preferential adsorption of the two species of the mixture, even though the corresponding…
Small molecules that interact strongly with water were the subject of this molecular dynamics (MD) study. These solutes include a cryoprotectant (DMSO), a polyalcohol [CH$_2$(OH)$_2$], carboxylic acid conjugates (HCOOH and HCOONa), an…
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…
We develop a model of interacting zwitterionic membranes with rotating surface dipoles immersed in a monovalent salt, and implement it in a field theoretic formalism. In the mean-field regime of monovalent salt, the electrostatic forces…
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…
The effect of rare-earth ions (R = Er$_3^+$, Tb$_3^+$, and Ce$_{3.75}^+$) on the dielectric properties and the electric polarization induced by local polar phase separation domains in solid solutions of R$_{0.8}$Ce$_{0.2}$Mn$_2$O$_5$ (R =…
We consider cold polar molecules confined in a helical optical lattice similar to those used in holographic microfabrication. An external electric field polarizes molecules along the axis of the helix. The large-distance inter-molecular…
Evaporation alters the molecular interactions and leads to phase separation within the evaporating liquid. The question of whether evaporation could lead to specific phase separation at the liquid interface and eventually to the formation…
Solvation, the result of the complicated interplay between solvent-solute and solvent-internal interactions, is one of the most important chemical processes. Consequently, a complete theoretical understanding of solvation seems a heroic…
We study the effect of salts on the thickness of wetting films on melting ice and interactions acting on CO$_2$ bubble near ice-water and vapor-water interfaces. Governing mechanisms are the Lifshitz and the double-layer interactions in the…
Surface phase transitions in surfactant adsorption layers are known to affect the dynamic properties of foams and to induce surface nucleation in freezing emulsion drops. Recently, these transitions were found to play a role in several…
We show that multichannel interactions significantly alter the phase diagram of ultracold bosonic molecules in an optical lattice. Most prominently, an unusual fluid region intervenes between the conventional superfluid and the Mott…
Molten salts are high-temperature ionic liquids whose unique combination of strong Coulombic interactions, large polarizabilities, and high ionic conductivities makes them central to energy storage, metallurgy, and nuclear technology.…