Read full paper at: http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=52969#.VK3xY8nQrzE Author(s) Kyongok Kang Affiliation(s) Forschungszentrum Juelich, ICS-3, Soft Condesed Matter, Juelich, Germany . ABSTRACT This article is a comprehensive overview of the ongoing research of the author on charged colloidal rods out of equilibrium, under external electric fields and at high concentrations around the glass transition. The suspensions of fd-virus particles are used as a model system for charged colloidal rods, which exhibit several disorder-order (and liquid-crystalline) phase transitions. When a low AC electric field is applied to suspensions in isotropic-nematic coexistence concentration, with frequencies that are sufficiently low to polarize the electric double layer and the layer of condensed ions, various phases/states are induced: a chiral nematic, a dynamical state where nematic domains persistently melt and ...
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