Ionic Capillary Evaporation in Weakly Charged Nanopores

Sahin Buyukdagli (1, 2) , Manoel Manghi (1) , John Palmeri (1, 2)

1 PhyStat - Physique Statistique des Systèmes Complexes (LPT)
2 LPT - Laboratoire de Physique Théorique

Using a variational field theory, we show that an electrolyte confined to a neutral cylindrical nanopore traversing a low dielectric membrane exhibits a first-order ionic liquid-vapor pseudo-phase-transition from an ionic-penetration "liquid" phase to an ionic-exclusion "vapor" phase, controlled by nanopore-modified ionic correlations and dielectric repulsion. For weakly charged nanopores, this pseudotransition survives and may shed light on the mechanism behind the rapid switching of nanopore conductivity observed in experiments.

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Sahin Buyukdagli, Manoel Manghi, John Palmeri. Ionic Capillary Evaporation in Weakly Charged Nanopores. Physical Review Letters, 2010, 105 (15), pp.158103. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.105.158103⟩. ⟨hal-00559645⟩