Beyond Poisson-Boltzmann : strong correlations and extreme confinement in ionic fluids

Understanding the electrostatic interactions of ions in the bulk and near electrified surfaces has been a fundamental question in physics for over a century since the "Poisson-Boltzmann" theory was first introduced. In this thesis, we study the bulk properties of ionic fluids in two important cases where the "Poisson-Boltzmann" theory fails: extreme confinement and strong ion-ion interactions. We first ask how ions behave when confined to a long and narrow tube. Recent advances in nanofabrication technology enabled us to make precise measurements in extremely narrow nanopores and revealed critical gaps in our understanding. A striking result of constraining ions to reside along a line is the exponentially long screening length that easily exceeds the macroscopic length of the pore, leading to electronetrality breakdown. Remarkably, this result has not been reported before, despite its fundamental consequences for ion transport and electrokinetic phenomena.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2020

Author dc:creator

• Levy, Amir,Ph. D.Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Martin Z. Bazant and Mehran Kardar.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses may be protected by copyright. Please reuse MIT thesis content according to the MIT Libraries Permissions Policy, which is available through the URL provided.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128320

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/128320