1,222 research outputs found
The Charge of Glass and Silica Surfaces
We present a method of calculating the electric charge density of glass and
silica surfaces in contact with aqueous electrolytes for two cases of practical
relevance that are not amenable to standard techniques: surfaces of low
specific area at low ionic strength and surfaces interacting strongly with a
second anionic surface.Comment: 7 pages, including 3 figure
Characterizing Quantum-Dot Blinking Using Noise Power Spectra
Fluctuations in the fluorescence from macroscopic ensembles of colloidal
semiconductor quantum dots have the spectral form of 1/f noise. The measured
power spectral density reflects the fluorescence intermittency of individual
dots with power-law distributions of "on" and "off" times, and can thus serve
as a simple method for characterizing such blinking behavior
Giant Colloidal Diffusivity on Corrugated Optical Vortices
A single colloidal sphere circulating around a periodically modulated optical
vortex trap can enter a dynamical state in which it intermittently alternates
between freely running around the ring-like optical vortex and becoming trapped
in local potential energy minima. Velocity fluctuations in this randomly
switching state still are characterized by a linear Einstein-like diffusion
law, but with an effective diffusion coefficient that is enhanced by more than
two orders of magnitude.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Flux reversal in a two-state symmetric optical thermal ratchet
A Brownian particle's random motions can be rectified by a periodic potential
energy landscape that alternates between two states, even if both states are
spatially symmetric. If the two states differ only by a discrete translation,
the direction of the ratchet-driven current can be reversed by changing their
relative durations. We experimentally demonstrate flux reversal in a symmetric
two-state ratchet by tracking the motions of colloidal spheres moving through
large arrays of discrete potential energy wells created with dynamic
holographic optical tweezers. The model's simplicity and high degree of
symmetry suggest possible applications in molecular-scale motors.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review E,
Rapid Communication
High-precision spectroscopy of ultracold molecules in an optical lattice
The study of ultracold molecules tightly trapped in an optical lattice can
expand the frontier of precision measurement and spectroscopy, and provide a
deeper insight into molecular and fundamental physics. Here we create, probe,
and image microkelvin Sr molecules in a lattice, and demonstrate
precise measurements of molecular parameters as well as coherent control of
molecular quantum states using optical fields. We discuss the sensitivity of
the system to dimensional effects, a new bound-to-continuum spectroscopy
technique for highly accurate binding energy measurements, and prospects for
new physics with this rich experimental system.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure
Weak Long-Ranged Casimir Attraction in Colloidal Crystals
We investigate the influence of geometric confinement on the free energy of
an idealized model for charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions. The mean-field
Poisson-Boltzmann formulation for this system predicts pure repulsion among
macroionic colloidal spheres. Fluctuations in the simple ions' distribution
provide a mechanism for the macroions to attract each other at large
separations. Although this Casimir interaction is long-ranged, it is too weak
to influence colloidal crystals' dynamics.Comment: 5 pages 2 figures ReVTe
Colloidal transport through optical tweezer arrays
Viscously damped particles driven past an evenly spaced array of potential
energy wells or barriers may become kinetically locked in to the array, or else
may escape from the array. The transition between locked-in and free-running
states has been predicted to depend sensitively on the ratio between the
particles' size and the separation between wells. This prediction is confirmed
by measurements on monodisperse colloidal spheres driven through arrays of
holographic optical traps.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Colloidal hydrodynamic coupling in concentric optical vortices
Optical vortex traps created from helical modes of light can drive
fluid-borne colloidal particles in circular trajectories. Concentric
circulating rings of particles formed by coaxial optical vortices form a
microscopic Couette cell, in which the amount of hydrodynamic drag experienced
by the spheres depends on the relative sense of the rings' circulation.
Tracking the particles' motions makes possible measurements of the hydrodynamic
coupling between the circular particle trains and addresses recently proposed
hydrodynamic instabilities for collective colloidal motions on optical
vortices.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Europhysics Letter
Observation of Flux Reversal in a Symmetric Optical Thermal Ratchet
We demonstrate that a cycle of three holographic optical trapping patterns
can implement a thermal ratchet for diffusing colloidal spheres, and that the
ratchet-driven transport displays flux reversal as a function of the cycle
frequency and the inter-trap separation. Unlike previously described ratchet
models, the approach we describe involves three equivalent states, each of
which is locally and globally spatially symmetric, with spatiotemporal symmetry
being broken by the sequence of states.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted for publication in Physical Review
Letter
Determining Pair Interactions from Structural Correlations
We examine metastable configurations of a two-dimensional system of
interacting particles on a quenched random potential landscape and ask how the
configurational pair correlation function is related to the particle
interactions and the statistical properties of the potential landscape.
Understanding this relation facilitates quantitative studies of magnetic flux
line interactions in type II superconductors, using structural information
available from Lorentz microscope images or Bitter decorations.
Previous work by some of us supported the conjecture that the relationship
between pair correlations and interactions in pinned flux line ensembles is
analogous to the corresponding relationship in the theory of simple liquids.
The present paper aims at a more thorough understanding of this relation. We
report the results of numerical simulations and present a theory for the low
density behavior of the pair correlation function which agrees well with our
simulations and captures features observed in experiments. In particular, we
find that the resulting description goes beyond the conjectured classical
liquid type relation and we remark on the differences.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures. See also http://rainbow.uchicago.edu/~grier
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