When droplets become stars: charged droplets beyond Rayleigh instability

MPSD Seminar

  • Date: Apr 21, 2016
  • Time: 03:00 PM - 04:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Styliani (Stella) Consta
  • Department of Chemistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
  • Location: CFEL (Bldg. 99)
  • Room: Seminar Room IV, O1.111
  • Host: R. J. Dwayne Miller
When droplets become stars: charged droplets beyond Rayleigh instability
The charge-induced instabilities of conducting and dielectric drops in an electric field have been studied over a century, starting from the seminar works of Lord Rayleigh, J. Zeleny, G. I. Taylor. The significance of the study is found in the presence of charged droplets in jets, electrospray mass spectrometry methods and atmospheric aerosols. In low temperature physics, applications of the confinement of electrons on the surface of liquid helium add new perspective on the significance of the study of the instabilities.

I will present theory and molecular modelling of the charged-induced instabilities of charged droplets with linear dimensions in the nanometer range. Differently from experimental and numerical studies of macroscopic drops, in the systems that I investigate the electric field is caused by a highly charged macroion found in the interior of the droplet. The geometry of the macroion (spherical, finite length rod) determines the electric field and opens up the possibility for different droplet morphologies that have not been studied so far (Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Droplets of various solvents that form star shapes. A charged macroion is found in the interior of the droplet. The grid bin is 1 nm.

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