In recent years, interface engineering of solid electrolytes has been explored to increase their ionic conductivity and improve the performance of solid oxide fuel cells and other electrochemical power sources. It has been observed that the ionic conductivity of epitaxially grown thin films of some electrolytes is dramatically enhanced, which is often attributed to effects (e.g. strain-induced ...

Polymeric materials as anion exchange membranes (AEMs) play an essential role in the field of energy and environment. The achievement of high performance AEMs by the precise manipulation of macromolecular architecture remains a daunting challenge. Herein, we firstly report a novel rod-coil graft copolymer AEM, possessing rigid hydrophobic main chains and soft hydrophilic graft chains. The low g...

We investigate electrokinetic transport of nanoparticles and biomolecules in nano-scale channels exhibiting novel features in comparison to microscale channels. Recent experimental work provides information about how the mobility and diffusivity depend sensitively and nonmonotonically on pH, ionic valence, and channel size. We discuss a TIRFM platform in which single quantum dot nanoparticles a...

In line with the trend towards electrification in mobility, there is a demand for development of next-generation Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors(MLCCs) superior properties compared to those using conventional BaTiO<sub>3</sub> (BT) ceramics. For this, various high-performing ferroelectric ceramics have been proposed as post-BT materials, and numerous studies conducted on role oxygen v...

Optical tweezers are experimental tools with extraordinary resolution in positioning (± 1 nm) a micron-sized colloid and in the measurement of forces (± 50 fN) acting on it-without any mechanical contact. This enables one to carry out a multitude of novel experiments in nano- and microfluidics, of which the following will be presented in this review: (i) forces within single pairs of colloids i...

Effects of ionic concentration gradient on electroosmotic flow (EOF) mixing of one stream of a high concentration electrolyte solution with a stream of a low concentration electrolyte solution in a microchannel are investigated numerically. The concentration field, flow field and electric field are strongly coupled via concentration dependent zeta potential, dielectric constant and electric con...

Trypsin-dissociated HeLa and human amnion cells were employed to investigate the effects of an anionic, a cationic, and a non-ionic surfactant on cell reaggregation. All the surfactants inhibited the reaggregation process, the effect increasing with surfactant concentration, and becoming significant at concentrations of about 10(-6) M for the anionic surfactant and about 10(-5) M for the others...

The nuclear spin relaxation behaviour in disordered ionically conducting materials is ascribed to a mechanism based on diffusion-controlled relaxation. In this targetdiffusion model, relaxation is assumed to occur at interstitialcy sites, triggered by the arrival of diffusing ions. The dependence of the spin-lattice relaxation rate on the temperature, Larmor frequency and ionic concentration ca...

Cremophor EL (CRM) is a non-ionic amphipathic emulsifier which has been used as a parenteral vehicle for many hydrophobic drugs. At concentrations above 0.4 mg ml-1, CRM alters lipoproteins so as to reduce their electrophoretic mobility; high density lipoprotein (HDL) is somewhat more sensitive than low density lipoprotein (LDL) in this regard. The same phenomenon was observed with Triton X-100...

Using molecular dynamics simulations, we show that, when subject to a periodic external electric field, a nanopore in ionic solution acts as a capacitor with memory (memcapacitor) at various frequencies and strengths of the electric field. Most importantly, the hysteresis loop of this memcapacitor shows both negative and diverging capacitance as a function of the voltage. The origin of this eff...