title: Direct Observation of Charge Inversion in Divalent Nanofluidic Devices.
abstract: Solid-state nanofluidic devices have proven to be ideal systems for studying the physics of ionic transport at the nanometer length scale. When the geometrical confining size of fluids approaches the ionic Debye screening length, new transport phenomena occur, such as surface mediated transport and permselectivity. Prior work has explored these effects extensively in monovalent systems (e.g., predominantly KCl and NaCl). In this report, we present a new characterization method for the study of divalent ionic transport and have unambiguously observed divalent charge inversion at solid/fluid interfaces. This observation has important implications in applications ranging from biology to energy conversion.
authors.forename: Sylvia Xin
authors.initials: SX
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: §Department of Electrical Engineering, Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania 16801, United States.
authors.forename: Weihua
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Weiner
authors.forename: Mark A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Reed
keywords: Nanofluidics; charge inversion; divalent ion transport; ion−ion correlation; open potential