Assembly of ordered colloidal aggregrates by electric-field-induced fluid flow

Syun-Ru Yeh, Michael Seul and Boris I. Shraiman
Additional contact information
Syun-Ru Yeh: Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Michael Seul: Waksman Institute
Boris I. Shraiman: Lucent Technologies

Nature, 1997, vol. 386, issue 6620, 57-59

Abstract: Abstract Suspensions of colloidal particles form a variety of ordered planar structures at an interface in response to an a.c. or d.c. electric field applied normal to the interface1–3. This field-induced pattern formation can be useful, for example, in the processing of materials. Here we explore the origin of the ordering phenomenon. We present evidence suggesting that the long-ranged attraction between particles which causes aggregation is mediated by electric-field-induced fluid flow. We have imaged an axially symmetric flow field around individual particles on a uniform electrode surface. The flow is induced by distortions in the applied electric field owing to inhomogeneities in the 'double layer' of ions and counterions at the electrode surface. The beads themselves can create these inhomogeneities, or alternatively, we can modify the electrode surfaces by lithographic patterning so as to introduce specified patterns into the aggregated structures.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/386057a0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:386:y:1997:i:6620:d:10.1038_386057a0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/386057a0

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().