Chiral motion in colloidal electrophoresis

Abstract

Asymmetrically charged, nonspherical colloidal particles in general perform complex rotations and oblique motions under an electric field. The interplay of electrostatic and hydrodynamic forces complicates the prediction of these motions. We demonstrate a method of calculating the body tensors that dictate translational and rotational velocity vectors arising from an external electric field. We treat insulating rigid bodies in the linear-response regime, with indefinitely small electrostatic screening length. The method represents the body as an assembly of point sources of both hydrodynamic drag and surface electric field. We demonstrate agreement with predicted electrophoretic mobility to within a few percent for several shapes with uniform and nonuniform charges. We show that even symmetric shapes can have strong chiral twisting motions. The method applies more generally to active colloidal swimmers.