CAREER: Colloidal Dynamics under Electrodiffusiophoresis

该奖项的目的是了解带电粒子在同时电场和离子浓度不均匀情况下的行为。这些知识将被用来指导将粒子组装成具有有用性质的材料。总体方法是实验与建模相结合。光学显微镜将被用来可视化带电粒子的反应，而输运分析将提供进一步的物理洞察。来自该奖项的见解将促进能够在感兴趣的配置之间快速切换的材料。另一个潜在的好处是分析超低浓度的小颗粒。分析低浓度的病毒和蛋白质对于疾病的早期诊断很重要。这一职业奖项的主要教育目标是增加留住那些在科学和工程领域历来被边缘化的群体的学生。拟议的试点计划除了早期参与研究外，还包括社区建设、能力发展。总体而言，综合研究和教育计划将有助于维持通往训练有素的劳动力的管道，从而推动国家的经济议程。该奖项旨在揭示在电扩散渗透作用下管理带电胶体的个人和集体动力学的物理学。研究方法包括测量粒子在同时承受电势和浓度梯度时所经历的力，执行传输分析以获得机理理解，以及通过光可寻址电极制作复杂的浓度分布。这项研究成果的实现将为交流电动力学和胶体科学领域贡献新的概念和实验方法；特别是，该奖项将为扩展捕捉和分析纳米级物体的技术能力提供基础知识。了解电扩散渗透作用下的胶体动力学将有助于设计先进的可重构材料，并有助于设计在飞摩尔浓度进行分析的策略。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The goal of this award is to understand the behavior of charged particles in the presence of simultaneous electric fields and nonuniform concentration of ions. This knowledge will be used to direct the assembly of particles into materials with useful properties. The overall approach combines experiments with modeling. Optical microscopy will be used to visualize the response of charged particles, while transport analysis will provide further physical insight. Insights from this award will facilitate materials with the ability to rapidly switch between configurations of interest. Another potential benefit is the analysis of small particles at ultralow concentrations. Analyzing viruses as well as proteins at low concentrations is of importance for the early diagnosis of diseases. The main educational goal of this CAREER award is to increase the retention of students from groups that have been historically marginalized in science, and engineering. The proposed pilot program incorporates community building, development of competencies, in addition to early involvement in research. Overall, the integrated research and education plan will help sustain pipelines to a well-trained workforce that can advance the economic agenda of the nation. This award aims to uncover the physics governing the individual and collective dynamics of charged colloids under electrodiffusiophoresis. The research approach consists in measuring the forces that particles experience when subjected to simultaneous gradients of electrical potential and concentration, in performing transport analysis to obtain mechanistic understanding, and in crafting complex concentration profiles through light addressable electrodes. Achieving the outcomes of this research will contribute new conceptual and experimental methods to the fields of AC electrokinetics and colloidal science; in particular, this award will provide fundamental knowledge to extend the capabilities of techniques to trap and analyze nanoscale objects. Understanding colloidal dynamics under electrodiffusiophoresis will facilitate the design of advanced reconfigurable materials, and the design of strategies to perform analysis at femtomolar concentrations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.