Search

The rotational dynamics of microparticles in liquids have a wide range of applications, including chemical microreactors, biotechnologies, microfluidic devices, tunable heat and mass transfer, and fundamental understanding of chiral active soft matter which refers to systems composed of particles that exhibit a handedness in their rotation, breaking mirror symmetry at the microscopic level. Here, we report on the study of two effects in colloids in rotating electric fields: (i) the rotation of individual colloidal particles in rotating electric field and related to that (ii) precession of pairs of particles. We show that the mechanism responsible for the rotation of individual particles is related to the time lag between the external field applied to the particle and the particle polarization. Using numerical simulations and experiments with silica particles in a water-based solvent, we prove that the observed rotation of particle pairs and triplets is governed by the tunable rotation of individual particles and can be explained and described by the action of hydrodynamic forces. Our findings demonstrate that colloidal suspensions in rotating electric fields, under some conditions, represent a novel class of chiral soft active matter—tunable colloidal spinners. The experiments and the corresponding theoretical framework we developed open novel prospects for future studies of these systems and for their potential applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In vitro modeling of brain tissue is a promising but not yet resolved problem in modern neurobiology and neuropharmacology. Complexity of the brain structure and diversity of cell-to-cell communication in (patho)physiological conditions make this task almost unachievable. However, establishment of novel in vitro brain models would ultimately lead to better understanding of development-associated or experience-driven brain plasticity, designing efficient approaches to restore aberrant brain functioning. The main goal of this review is to summarize the available data on methodological approaches that are currently in use, and to identify the most prospective trends in development of neurovascular unit, blood-brain barrier, blood-cerebrospinal fluid barrier, and neurogenic niche in vitro models. The manuscript focuses on the regulation of adult neurogenesis, cerebral microcirculation and fluids dynamics that should be reproduced in the in vitro 4D models to mimic brain development and its alterations in brain pathology. We discuss approaches that are critical for studying brain plasticity, deciphering the individual person-specific trajectory of brain development and aging, and testing new drug candidates in the in vitro models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monolayer and two-dimensional (2D) systems exhibit rich phase behavior, compared with 3D systems, in particular, due to the hexatic phase playing a central role in melting scenarios. The attraction range is known to affect critical gas–liquid behavior (liquid–liquid in protein and colloidal systems), but the effect of attraction on melting in 2D systems remains unstudied systematically. Here, we have revealed how the attraction range affects the phase diagrams and melting scenarios in a 2D system. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we have considered the generalized Lennard-Jones system with a fixed repulsion branch and different power indices of attraction from long-range dipolar to short-range sticky-sphere-like. A drop in the attraction range has been found to reduce the temperature of the gas–liquid critical point, bringing it closer to the gas–liquid–solid triple point. At high temperatures, attraction does not affect the melting scenario that proceeds through the cascade of solid–hexatic (Berezinskii–Kosterlitz–Thouless) and hexatic–liquid (first-order) phase transitions. In the case of dipolar attraction, we have observed two triple points inherent in a 2D system: hexatic–liquid–gas and crystal–hexatic–gas, the temperature of the crystal–hexatic–gas triple point is below the hexatic–liquid–gas triple point. This observation may have far-reaching consequences for future studies, since phase diagrams determine possible routes of self-assembly in molecular, protein, and colloidal systems, whereas the attraction range can be adjusted with complex solvents and external electric or magnetic fields. The results obtained may be widely used in condensed matter, chemical physics, materials science, and soft matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among different thermodynamic properties of liquids, the entropy is one of the hardest quantities to estimate. Therefore, the development of models allowing accurate estimations of the entropy for different mechanisms of interatomic interactions represents an important problem. Here, we propose a method for estimating the excess entropy of simple liquids not too far from the liquid–solid phase transition. The method represents a variant of cell theory, which particularly emphasizes relations between liquid state thermodynamics and collective modes properties. The method is applied to calculate the excess entropy of inverse-power-law fluids with ∝r−n repulsive interactions. The covered range of potential softness is extremely wide, including the very soft Coulomb (n = 1) case, much steeper n = 6 and n = 12 cases, and the opposite hard-sphere interaction limit (n = ∞). An overall reasonably good agreement between the method's outcome and existing "exact" results is documented at sufficiently high fluid densities. Its applicability condition can be conveniently formulated in terms of the excess entropy itself. The method is also applied to the Lennard-Jones potential but demonstrates considerably lower accuracy in this case. Our results should be relevant to a broad range of liquid systems that can be described with isotropic repulsive interactions, including liquid metals, macromolecular systems, globular proteins, and colloidal suspensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anisotropic particles are widely presented in nature, from colloidal to bacterial systems, and control over their interactions is of crucial importance for many applications, from self-assembly of novel materials to microfluidics. Placed in rapidly rotating external electric fields, colloidal particles attain a tunable long-range and many-body part in their interactions. For spherical colloids, this approach has been shown to offer rich capabilities to construct the tunable interactions via designing the internal structure of particles and spatial hodographs of external rotating fields, but in the case of anisotropic particles, the interactions remain poorly understood. Here, we show that tunable interactions between anisotropic rod-like and spheroidal colloidal particles in rotating electric or magnetic fields can be calculated and analyzed with the diagrammatic technique we developed in the present work. With this technique, we considered an in-plane rotating electric field, obtained the long-range asymptotics of the anisotropic interactions, calculated the tunable interactions between particles rotating synchronously, and found conditions for rotator repulsion. We compared the mechanisms providing tunable interactions to those for orientational (Keesom), induction (Debye), and dispersion (London) interactions in molecular systems and found that the tunable interactions between anisotropic particles represent a novel kind of dipole-like interaction. The method can be directly generalized for magnetically induced interactions, 3D systems, and fields with spatial hodographs. The results provide significant advance in theoretical methods for tunable interactions in colloids and, therefore, are of broad interest in condensed matter, chemical physics, physical chemistry, materials science, and soft matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tunable interactions between colloidal particles, governed by external rotating electric or magnetic fields, yield rich capabilities for prospective self-assembly technologies of materials and fundamental particle-resolved studies of phase transitions and transport phenomena in soft matter. However, the role of the internal structure of colloidal particles in the tunable interactions has never been systematically investigated. Here, we study the tunable interactions between composite particles with core–shell structure in a rotating electric field and show that the engineering of their internal structure provides an effective tool for designing the interactions. We generalized an integral theory and studied the tunable interactions between core–shell particles with homogeneous cores (layered particles) and cores with nano-inclusions to reveal the main trends in the interactions influenced by the structure. We found that depending on the materials of the core, shell, and solvent, the interactions with the attractive pairwise part and positive or negative three-body part can be obtained, as well as pairwise repulsion with attractive three-body interactions (for triangular triplets). The latter case is observed for the first time, being unattainable for homogeneous particles but feasible with core–shell particles: Qualitatively similar interactions are inherent to charged colloids (repulsive pairwise and attractive three-body energies), known as a model system of globular proteins. The methods and conclusions of our paper can be generalized for magnetic and 3D colloidal systems. The results make a significant advance in the analysis of tunable interactions in colloidal systems, which are of broad interest in condensed matter, chemical physics, physical chemistry, materials science, and soft matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of particle activity on collective excitations in active fluids of microflyers is studied. With an in silico study, we observed an oscillating breakdown of equipartition (uniform spectral distribution) of kinetic energy in reciprocal space. The phenomenon is related to short-range velocity–velocity correlations that were realized without forming of long-lived mesoscale vortices in the system. This stands in contrast to well-known mesoscale turbulence operating in active nematic systems (bacterial or artificial) and reveals the features of collective dynamics in active fluids, which should be important for structural transitions and glassy dynamics in active matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tunable interactions in colloids, induced by rotating electric or magnetic fields, provide a flexible and promising tool for self-assembly of soft materials, as well as for fundamental particle-resolved studies of phase transitions and other generic phenomena in condensed matter. In the case of two-dimensional systems and the in-plane rotating fields, the interactions are known to have a long-range (dipolar) attraction and an expressed three-body part at short distances, but still remain poorly understood. Here, we show that the interactions and polarization mechanisms governing the tunable interactions can be described, calculated, and analyzed in detail with the diagrammatic method we proposed. The diagrams yield a clear illustration of different polarization processes contributing to the Keesom, Debye, London, self, and external energies, classified in colloids similarly to intermolecular interactions. The real tunable interactions, obtained with the boundary element method, can be simply and accurately interpolated with the set of basis of the diagrams attributed to different physically clear polarization processes. Calculation of large-distance behavior and interpolation of the many-body interactions (and analysis of the leading mechanisms contributing to them) excellently illustrate that the diagrammatic method provides deep insights into the nature of tunable interactions. The method can be generalized for multicomponent systems, suspensions of particles with a composite structure and a complicated shape. The results provide significant advance in theoretical methods for detailed analysis of tunable interactions in colloids and, therefore, the method is of broad interest in condensed matter, chemical physics, physical chemistry, materials science, and soft matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate analysis of pair correlations in condensed matter allows us to establish relations between structures and thermodynamic properties and, thus, is of high importance for a wide range of systems, from solids to colloidal suspensions. Recently, the interpolation method (IM) that describes satisfactorily the shape of pair correlation peaks at short and at long distances has been elaborated theoretically and using molecular dynamics simulations, but it has not been verified experimentally as yet. Here, we test the IM by particle-resolved studies with colloidal suspensions and with complex (dusty) plasmas and demonstrate that, owing to its high accuracy, the IM can be used to experimentally measure parameters that describe interaction between particles in these systems. We used three- and two-dimensional colloidal crystals and monolayer complex (dusty) plasma crystals to explore suitability of the IM in systems with soft to hard-sphere-like repulsion between particles. In addition to the systems with pairwise interactions, if many-body interactions can be mapped to the pairwise ones with some effective (e.g., density-dependent) parameters, the IM could be used to obtain these parameters. The results reliably show that the IM can be effectively used for analysis of pair correlations and interactions in a wide variety of systems and therefore is of broad interest in condensed matter, complex plasma, chemical physics, physical chemistry, materials science, and soft matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the phase diagram of a two-dimensional (2D) system of colloidal particles, interacting via an isotropic potential with a short-ranged Yukawa repulsion and a long-ranged dipolar attraction. Such interactions in 2D colloidal suspensions can be induced by rapidly rotating in-plane magnetic (or electric) fields. Using computer simulations and liquid integral equation theory, we calculate the bulk phase diagram, which contains gas, crystalline, liquid, and supercritical fluid phases. The densities at the critical and triple points in the phase diagram are governed by the softness of Yukawa repulsion and can therefore be largely tuned. We observe that the liquid-gas binodals exhibit universal behavior when the effective temperature (given by the inverse magnitude of the dipolar attractions) is normalized by its value at the critical point and the density is normalized by the squared Barker-Henderson diameter. The results can be verified in particle-resolved experiments with colloidal suspensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple practical approach to describe transverse (shear) waves in strongly-coupled Yukawa fluids is presented. Theoretical dispersion curves, based on hydrodynamic consideration, are shown to compare favorably with existing numerical results for plasma-related systems in the long-wavelength regime. The existence of a minimum wave number below which shear waves cannot propagate and its magnitude are properly accounted in the approach. The relevance of the approach beyond plasma-related Yukawa fluids is demonstrated by using experimental data on transverse excitations in liquid metals Fe, Cu, and Zn, obtained from inelastic x-ray scattering. Some potentially important relations, scalings, and quasi-universalities are discussed. The results should be interesting for a broad community in chemical physics, materials physics, physics of fluids and glassy state, complex (dusty) plasmas, and soft matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular dynamics simulations have been performed to investigate in detail collective modes spectra of two-dimensional Coulomb fluids in a wide range of coupling. The obtained dispersion relations are compared with theoretical approaches based on quasi-crystalline approximation, also known as the quasi-localized charge approximation, in the plasma-related context. An overall satisfactory agreement between theory and simulations is documented for the longitudinal mode at moderate coupling and in the long-wavelength domain at strong coupling. For the transverse mode, satisfactory agreement in the long-wavelength domain is only reached at very strong coupling, when the cutoff wave-number below which shear waves cannot propagate becomes small. The dependence of the cutoff wave-number for shear waves on the coupling parameter is obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermodynamics of two-dimensional Yukawa (screened Coulomb or Debye-Hüuckel) systems is studied systematically using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Simulations cover very broad parameter range spanning from weakly coupled gaseous states to strongly coupled fluid and crystalline states. Important thermodynamic quantities, such as internal energy and pressure, are obtained and accurate physically motivated fits are proposed. This allows us to put forward simple practical expressions to describe thermodynamic properties of two-dimensional Yukawa systems. For crystals, in addition to numerical simulations, the recently developed shortest-graph interpolation method is applied to describe pair correlations and hence thermodynamic properties. It is shown that the finite-temperature effects can be accounted for by using simple correction of peaks in the pair correlation function. The corresponding correction coefficients are evaluated using MD simulation. The relevance of the obtained results in the context of colloidal systems, complex (dusty) plasmas, and ions absorbed to interfaces in electrolytes is pointed out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A phase‐field crystal model (PFC model) which takes into account exponential relaxation of the atomic flux and its fluctuations is developed. The model corresponds to a system undergoing phase transformation described with a partial differential equation of hyperbolic type. Such a model covers slow and rapid regimes of interface propagation at small and large driving forces during melting and solidification. The analysis is done for the evolution of atomic crystal lattices appearing from a metastable homogeneous liquid for the chemically pure system supercooled below its critical temperature. Numerical simulation of the system "Liquid ‐ Body Centered Cubic (BCC) crystal lattice" allows us to formulate the hypothesis about the formation of metastable periodic solutions (atomic configurations which are not in the thermodynamic equilibrium) during the relaxation of atomic configurations to the stable equilibrium. These metastable states may be destroyed (or even avoided) due to the action of colored noise. Namely, considering spatiotemporal correlations of the atomic flux fluctuations, we have found that the temporal correlations promote selecting long‐range atomic lattices, whereas the spatial correlations corresponding to the periodic structure scales decelerate such processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The shortest-graph method is applied to calculate the pair correlation functions of crystals. The method is based on the representation of individual correlation peaks by the Gaussian functions, summed along the shortest graph connecting the two given points. The analytical expressions for the Gaussian parameters are derived for two- and three-dimensional crystals. The obtained results are compared with the pair correlation functions deduced from the molecular dynamics simulations of Yukawa, inverse-power law, Weeks-Chandler-Andersen, and Lennard-Jones crystals. By calculating the Helmholtz free energy, it is shown that the method is particularly accurate for soft interparticle interactions and for low temperatures, i.e., when the anharmonicity effects are insignificant. The accuracy of the method is further demonstrated by deriving the solid-solid transition line for Yukawa crystals, and the compressibility for inverse-power law crystals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report results on the terahertz (THz) spectroscopy of polymer Nafion. Using THz pulse spectroscopy and refined post-processing algorithms based on the ill-posed spectroscopic inverse problem analysis, we find the complex dielectric permittivity of Nafion to be in the range 0.15-1.5 THz. The results in the low-frequency (gigahertz) range agree well with known measurements. We find that the complex dielectric permittivity can be described well using the double-Debye model with relaxation times of 7.20×0.05 ps and 0.12×0.05 ps. This result is discussed briefly from the viewpoint of the appearance of a segregated structure in the "Nafion-water" system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel approach for the enhancement of nonlinear optical effects inside globular photonic crystals (PCs) is proposed and systematically studied via numerical simulations. The enhanced optical harmonic generation is associated with two- and three-dimensional PC pumping with the wavelength corresponding to different PC band-gaps. The interactions between light and the PC are numerically simulated using the finite-difference time-domain technique for solving the Maxwell's equations. Both empty and infiltrated two-dimensional PC structures are considered. A significant enhancement of harmonic generation is predicted owing to the highly efficient PC pumping based on the structural light focusing effect inside the PC structure. It is shown that a highly efficient harmonic generation could be attained for both the empty and infiltrated two- and three-dimensional PCs. We are demonstrating the ability for two times enhancement of the parametric decay efficiency, one order enhancement of the second harmonic generation, and two order enhancement of the third harmonic generation in PC structures in comparison to the nonlinear generations in appropriate homogenous media. Obviously, the nonlinear processes should be allowed by the molecular symmetry. The criteria of the nonlinear process efficiency are specified and calculated as a function of pumping wavelength position towards the PC globule diameter. Obtained criterion curves exhibit oscillating characteristics, which indicates that the highly efficient generation corresponds to the various PC band-gap pumping. The highest efficiency of nonlinear conversions could be reached for PC pumping with femtosecond optical pulses; thus, the local peak intensity would be maximized. Possible applications of the observed phenomenon are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New experimental and theoretical results for the material parameter reconstruction using terahertz (THz) pulsed spectroscopy (TPS) are presented. The material parameter reconstruction algorithm was realized and experimentally implemented to study the test sample. In order to both verify the algorithm and to estimate the reconstruction accuracy, test sample material parameters obtained with the TPS were compared with the results of the same sample studying by the use of the backward-wave oscillator (BWO) spectroscopy. Thus, high reconstruction accuracy was demonstrated for the spectral range, corresponding to the BWO sensitivity and located between 0.2 and 1.2 THz. The numerical simulations were applied for determining the material parameter reconstruction stability in the presence of white Gaussian noise in TPS waveforms as well as fluctuations in the femtosecond (FS) optical pulse duration. We report a strong dependence of the inverse problem solution stability on these factors. We found that the instability of the FS optical pulse duration used for THz pulses generation and detection limits the material parameter reconstruction with TPS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]