Related papers: Charge regulation and local dielectric function in…
The ion distribution of electrolytes near interfaces with dielectric contrast has important consequences for electrochemical processes and many other applications. To date, most studies of such systems have focused on geometrically simple…
Polymer brushes are attractive as surface coatings for a wide range of applications, from fundamental research to everyday life, and also play important roles in biological systems. How colloids (e.g., functional nanoparticles, proteins,…
We demonstrate that a highly charged polyelectrolyte confined in a spherical cavity undergoes reversible transformations between amorphous conformations to a four-fold symmetry morphology as a function of dielectric mismatch between the…
Polyelectrolyte microcapsules loaded with fluorescent dyes have been proposed as biosensors to monitor local pH and ionic strength for diagnostic purposes. In the case of charged microcapsules, however, the local electric field can cause…
We consider a polymer brush grafted to a surface (acting as an electrode) and bearing a charged group at its free end. Using a second distant electrode, the brush is subject to a constant electric field. Based on a coarse-grained continuum…
Electrophoretic (EP) mobility reversal is commonly observed for strongly charged macromolecules in multivalent salt solutions. This curious effect takes place, e.g., when a charged polymer, such as DNA, adsorbs excess counterions so that…
We study the complex formation between one long polyanion chain and many short oligocation chains by computer simulations. We employ a coarse-grained bead-spring model for the polyelectrolyte chains, and model explicitly the small salt…
We examine the stability of a soft dielectric plate deformed by the coupled effects of a mechanical pre-stress applied on its lateral faces and an electric field applied through its thickness under charge control. The electric field is…
Ionic crystals, such as solid electrolytes and complex oxides, are central to modern technologies for energy storage, sensing, actuation, and other functional applications. An important fundamental issue in the atomic and quantum-scale…
Mean-field theory and scaling arguments are presented to model polyelectrolyte adsorption from semi-dilute solutions onto charged surfaces. Using numerical solutions of the mean-field equations, we show that adsorption exists only for…
We investigate the properties of rigid polyelectrolyte solutions in presence of monovalent salt. The free energy within the Debye-H\"uckel-Bjerrum (DHBj) theory [M. E. Fisher and Y. Levin, {\it Phys. Rev. Lett.} 71, 3826 (1993)] is…
Screening is one of the most important concepts in the study of charged systems. Near a dielectric interface, the ion distribution in a salt solution can be highly nonuniform. Here, we develop a theory that self-consistently treats the…
The problem of the equilibrium state of the charged many-particle system above dielectric surface is formulated.We consider the case of the presence of the external attractive pressing field and the case of its absence. The equilibrium…
The structures of dilute electrolyte solutions close to non-uniformly charged planar substrates are systematically studied within the entire spectrum of microscopic to macroscopic length scales by means of a unified classical density…
We model and simulate a nanopore sensor that selectively binds analyte ions. This binding leads to the modulation of the local concentrations of the ions of the background electrolyte (KCl), and, thus, to the modulation of the ionic current…
Bipolar nanopores have powerful rectification properties due to the asymmetry in the charge pattern on the wall of the nanopore. In particular, bipolar nanopores have positive and negative surface charges along the pore axis. Rectification…
The classical Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) theory of electrolytes assumes a dilute solution of point charges with mean-field electrostatic forces. Even for very dilute solutions, however, it predicts absurdly large ion concentrations (exceeding…
Conformation of single polyelectrolytes in tetravalent salt solutions is investigated under the framework of a coarse-grained model, using Langevin dynamics simulations. The chain size, studied by the radius of gyration, shows three…
Solid polymer electrolytes for lithium batteries promise improvements in safety and energy density if their conductivity can be increased. Nanostructured block copolymer electrolytes specifically have the potential to provide both good…
The adsorption of flexible and highly charged polyelectrolytes onto oppositely charged planar surfaces is investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The effect of image forces stemming from the dielectric discontinuity at the…