Elecktrokinetics of colloids and biophysical systems

What is electrokinetics?

Identification and analysis of cell populations and (micro)biological particles are essential in many practical applications ranging from cancer research to chemical analysis of environmental pollutants. During the past decade, alternating current (AC) electrokinetic phenomena, and in particular electrorotation (ER) and dielectrophoresis (DEP), have received much attention in this respect. In addition to biological and environmental applications, AC electrokinetic phenomena have been suggested as possible mechanisms for nanomotors.

Both dielectrophoresis and electrorotation are based on dielectric properties of particles. These properties depend on the nature of the surface, e.g., size, shape, and charge density. For example, since the composition and shape of cancer cells differ from those of healthy cells, these difference are reflected in their characteristic dielectric properties which can be exploited in identifying them. From a practical point of view, AC electrokinetic methods have the advantages of short detection times and high sensitivity.

Our publications related to electrokinetics

• Dielectrophoresis of nanocolloids: a molecular dynamics study,
  E. Salonen and E. Terama and I. Vattulainen and Mikko Karttunen
  submitted. email for a preprint.
  

• Nonlinear alternating current responses of dipolar fluids,
  J.P. Huang, K.W. Yu, and Mikko Karttunen
  Phys. Rev. E 70 011403 (2004).
  [online]     [cond-mat/0403019]

• Optical nonlinearity enhancement of graded metal-dielectric composite films
  Ji-Ping Huang, L. Dong, and Kin Wah Yu
  Europhys. Lett. 67, 854-858 (2004).
  

• Electrokinetic behavior of two touching inhomogeneous biological cells and colloidal particles: Effects of multipolar interactions,
  J.P. Huang, Mikko Karttunen, K.W. Yu, L. Dong, and G.Q. Gu
  Phys. Rev. E 69, 051402 (2004)
  [cond-mat/0306271] [online]

• Many-body dipole-induced dipole model for electrorheological fluids
  Ji-Ping Huang and Kin Wah Yu
  Chinese Physics 13, 1065-05 (2004).

• Dielectric response of graded spherical particles of anisotropic materials
  L. Dong, J.P. Huang, K.W. Yu, and G.Q. Gu
  J. Appl. Phys. 95, 621-624 (2004)
  [online]

• Electrokinetic behavior of two touching inhomogeneous biological cells and colloidal particles: Effects of multipolar interactions,
  J.P. Huang, Mikko Karttunen, K.W. Yu, L. Dong, and G.Q. Gu
  Phys. Rev. E 69, 051402 (2004)
  [cond-mat/0306271] [online]
  Selected for the June 1, 2004 issue of the Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research

• Dielectric response of graded spherical particles of anisotropic materials
  L. Dong, J.P. Huang, K.W. Yu, and G.Q. Gu
  J. Appl. Phys. 95, 621-624 (2004)
  [online]

• Electrorotation in graded colloidal suspensions,
  J.P. Huang, K.W. Yu, G.Q. Gu and Mikko Karttunen,
  Phys. Rev. E 67, 051405
  [Online] [Preprint]
  Selected for the June 1, 2003 issue of the Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research

• Dielectrophoresis of charged colloidal suspensions,
  J.P. Huang, Mikko Karttunen, K. W. Yu, and L. Dong
  Phys. Rev. E 67, 021403 (2003)
  [Online] [Preprint]
  Selected for the Mar. 1, 2003 issue of the Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research

• Stability of charge inversion, Thomson problem and application to electrophoresis
  Michael Patra, Marco Patriarca, and Mikko Karttunen
  Phys. Rev. E 67, 031402 (2003)
  [Online] [Preprint]
  Selected for the Apr. 1, 2003 issue of the Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research

• Dielectric response of spherical particles of graded materials, K.W. Yu, G.Q. Gu and J.P. Huang, cond-mat/0211532

More:

• See our publication list.