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Transport of fluids and particles at the microscale is an important theme both in fundamental and applied science. One of the most successful approaches is to use an electric field, which requires the system to carry or induce electric…
The ability to manipulate polar entities with multiple external fields opens exciting possibilities for emerging functionalities and novel applications in spin systems, photonics, metamaterials, and soft matter. Liquid crystals (LCs),…
Particles suspended in fluid flow through a closed duct can focus to specific stable locations in the duct cross-section due to hydrodynamic forces arising from the inertia of the disturbed fluid. Such particle focusing is exploited in…
We have developed and experimentally demonstrated an improved electrostatic deflector for the spatial separation of molecules according to their dipole-moment-to-mass ratio. The device features a very open structure that allows for…
Unrestricted particle transport through microfluidic channels is of paramount importance to a wide range of applications, including lab-on-a-chip devices. In this article, we study using video microscopy the electro-osmotic aggregation of…
Dynamics of small particles, both living such as swimming bacteria and inanimate, such as colloidal spheres, has fascinated scientists for centuries. If one could learn how to control and streamline their chaotic motion, that would open…
Cholesteric liquid crystals can exhibit spatial patterns in molecular alignment at interfaces that can be exploited for particle assembly. These patterns emerge from the competition between bulk and surface energies, tunable with the system…
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…
Efficient particle sorting in microfluidic systems is vital for advancements in biomedical diagnostics and industrial applications. This study numerically investigates particle migration and passive sorting in symmetric serpentine…
The physical mechanism of elasticity of liquid surfaces coated with colloidal particles is proposed. It is suggested that particles are separated by water clearings and the capillary interaction between them is negligible. The case is…
We calculate the effective dielectric function for a suspension of small metallic particles immersed in a nematic liquid crystal (NLC) host. For a random suspension of such particles in the dilute limit, we calculate the effective…
Orientational and positional ordering properties of liquid crystal monolayers are examined by means of Fundamental-Measure Density Functional Theory. Particles forming the monolayer are modeled as hard parallelepipeds of square section of…
This work investigates the migration of spherical particles of different sizes in a centrifuge-driven deterministic lateral displacement (c-DLD) device. Specifically, we use a scaled-up model to study the motion of suspended particles…
Froth flotation predominantly separates particles according to their differences in wettability. However, other particle properties such as size, shape or density significantly influence the separation outcome as well. Froth flotation is…
Sorting cells based on their intrinsic properties is a highly desirable objective, since changes in cell deformability are often associated with various stress conditions and diseases. Deterministic lateral displacement (DLD) devices offer…
Building on the striking similarity between the structure of the spindle during mitosis in living cells and nematic textures in confined liquid crystals, we use a continuum model of two-dimensional nematic liquid crystal droplets, to…
We study the interaction of small hydrophobic particles on the surface of an ultra-soft elastic gel, in which a small amount of elasticity of the medium balances the weights of the particles. The excess energy of the surface of the deformed…
Colloids self-assemble into various organized superstructures determined by particle interactions. There is a tremendous progress in both the scientific understanding and applications of self-assemblies of single-type identical particles.…
Active matter systems being in a non-equilibrium state, exhibit complex behaviors such as self-organization and giving rise to emergent phenomena. There are many examples of active particles with biological origins, including bacteria and…
We have established previously, in a lead-in study, that the spreading of liquids in particulate porous media at low saturation levels, characteristically less than 10% of the void space, has very distinctive features in comparison to that…