Anisotropic electrostatic screening of charged colloids in nematic solvents.

Autor:	Everts JC; Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.; Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kasprzaka 44/52, PL-01-224 Warsaw, Poland., Senyuk B; Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA., Mundoor H; Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA., Ravnik M; Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia. miha.ravnik@fmf.uni-lj.si ivan.smalyukh@colorado.edu.; Jozef Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia., Smalyukh II; Department of Physics and Soft Materials Research Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA. miha.ravnik@fmf.uni-lj.si ivan.smalyukh@colorado.edu.; Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering Program, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.; Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
Jazyk:	angličtina
Zdroj:	Science advances [Sci Adv] 2021 Jan 27; Vol. 7 (5). Date of Electronic Publication: 2021 Jan 27 (Print Publication: 2021).
DOI:	10.1126/sciadv.abd0662
Abstrakt:	The physical behavior of anisotropic charged colloids is determined by their material dielectric anisotropy, affecting colloidal self-assembly, biological function, and even out-of-equilibrium behavior. However, little is known about anisotropic electrostatic screening, which underlies all electrostatic effective interactions in such soft or biological materials. In this work, we demonstrate anisotropic electrostatic screening for charged colloidal particles in a nematic electrolyte. We show that material anisotropy behaves markedly different from particle anisotropy. The electrostatic potential and pair interactions decay with an anisotropic Debye screening length, contrasting the constant screening length for isotropic electrolytes. Charged dumpling-shaped near-spherical colloidal particles in a nematic medium are used as an experimental model system to explore the effects of anisotropic screening, demonstrating competing anisotropic elastic and electrostatic effective pair interactions for colloidal surface charges tunable from neutral to high, yielding particle-separated metastable states. Generally, our work contributes to the understanding of electrostatic screening in nematic anisotropic media. (Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC).)
Databáze:	MEDLINE
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