Induced-charge electrophoresis of ideally polarizable particle pairs

Abstract

Owing to nonlinearity of induced-charge electrophoresis, the relative two-dimensional motion of a pair of conducting cylinders under a uniform DC field comprises---in addition to the symmetric translation along their line of centers (LOC) associated with the separate contributions of the parallel- and perpendicular- external-field components---LOC rotation resulting from their interaction. Consequently, all particles are eventually moving apart in the general direction perpendicular to the field. When LOC is initially oriented sufficiently close to the field, this takes place through transient pairing events.