Related papers: Charge-, salt- and flexoelectricity-driven anchori…
This review examines the conditions that lead to the formation of flexo-sensitive chiral polar structures in thin films and core-shell ferroelectric nanoparticles. It also analyzes possible mechanisms by which the flexoelectric effect…
Ferronematic phases, composed of liquid crystals doped with magnetic nanoparticles, exhibit unique magnetomechanical coupling effects that are of interest for responsive materials. In this study, we investigate the influence of…
We predict the nature (attractive or repulsive) and range (exponentially screened or long-range power law) of the electrostatic interactions of oppositely charged and planar plates as a function of the salt concentration and surface charge…
The response of a suspension under a variety of static or alternating external fields strongly depends on the equilibrium electric double layer that surrounds the colloidal particles in the suspension. The theoretical models for salt-free…
Nematic liquid crystals possess three different phases: isotropic, uniaxial, and biaxial. The ground state of most nematics is either isotropic or uniaxial, depending on the external temperature. Nevertheless, biaxial domains have been…
We use a variational principle to derive a mathematical model for a nematic electrolyte in which the liquid crystalline component is described in terms of a second-rank order tensor. The model extends the previously developed director-based…
Electrokinetic transport behavior in nanochannels is different to that in larger sized channels. Specifically, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations in nanochannels have demonstrated two little understood phenomena which are not observed in…
The line tension of an electrolyte wetting a non-polar substrate is computed analytically and numerically. The results show that, depending on the value of the apparent contact angle, positive or negative line tension values may be…
In conventional ferroelectrics the electric dipoles are generated by off-center displacements of ions. In recent years, a new type of so-called electronic ferroelectrics has attracted great attention, where the polarization is driven by…
The effects of image charges (i.e., induced surface charges of polarization) in spherical geometry and their implication for charged colloidal systems are investigated. We study analytically and exactly a single microion interacting with a…
We discuss how the wettability of solid walls impacts electrokinetic properties, from large systems to a nanoscale. We show in particular how could the hydrophobic slippage, coupled to confinement effects, be exploited to induce novel…
In low-permeability rock, fluid and mineral transport occur in pores and fracture apertures at the scale of micrometers and below. At this scale, the presence of surface charge, and a resultant electrical double layer, may considerably…
We study the interaction between two neutral plane-parallel dielectric bodies in the presence of a highly asymmetric ionic fluid, containing multivalent as well as monovalent (salt) ions. Image charge interactions, due to dielectric…
The present study deals with the effect of ionic advection on electroosmotic flow over charge modulated surfaces in a generalized paradigm when the classically restrictive "weak field" limit may be relaxed. Going beyond the commonly…
Thermo-osmotic flows - flows generated in micro and nanofluidic systems by thermal gradients - could provide an alternative approach to harvest waste heat. However, such use would require massive thermo-osmotic flows, which are up to now…
The electrostatic pull-in instability (EPI), within the framework of the nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) has been shown as a robust and versatile method for characterizing mechanical properties of nanocantilevers. This paper aims to…
Because of the flexoelectric effect, dielectric materials usually polarize in response to a strain gradient. Soft materials are good candidates for developing large strain gradient because of their good deformability. However, they always…
We perform computational investigations of electrolyte-mediated interactions of charged colloidal particles confined within nanochannels. We investigate the role of discrete ion effects, valence, and electrolyte strength on colloid-wall…
Nanopores spanning synthetic membranes have been used as key components in proof-of-principle nanofluidic applications, particularly those involving manipulation of biomolecules or sequencing of DNA. The only practical way of manipulating…
Nanoparticles can influence the properties of polymer materials by a variety of mechanisms. With fullerene, carbon nanotube, and clay or graphene sheet nanocomposites in mind, we investigate how particle shape influences the melt shear…