title: Dielectric effects in the self-assembly of binary colloidal aggregates.
abstract: Electrostatic interactions play an important role in numerous self-assembly phenomena, including colloidal aggregation. Although colloids typically have a dielectric constant that differs from the surrounding solvent, the effective interactions that arise from inhomogeneous polarization charge distributions are generally neglected in theoretical and computational studies. We introduce an efficient technique to resolve polarization charges in dynamical dielectric geometries, and demonstrate that dielectric effects qualitatively alter the predicted self-assembled structures, with surprising colloidal strings arising from many-body effects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
authors.forename: Kipton
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Barros
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois 60208, USA.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Luijten
mesh_terms: D003102:Colloids / Q000737:chemistry*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D012997:Solvents; D055672:Static Electricity
chemical_list: D003102:Colloids; D012997:Solvents