Physics (Internal)

Dielectric effects in self-assembly of binary colloid mixtures

This event is part of the Biophysics/Condensed Matter Seminar Series.

Abstract:
Electrostatic interactions are often relevant to the self-assembly of colloids. In such systems, dielectric effects yield complicated multi-body interactions via polarization charge induced at the colloid surfaces. These interactions are difficult to quantify and have been ignored in previous simulations of colloids with implicit solvent. I will review the physics of dielectrics and present an efficient numerical method to calculate electrostatic interactions in arbitrary dielectric geometry. Surprising collective behavior is observed in molecular dynamics simulations of weakly charged, size asymmetric colloid mixtures: dielectric effects are found to influence crystallization and symmetry.