Benjamin Rotenberg (PHENIX)

Making Sense of Electrical Noise by Simulating Electrolyte Solutions

Seemingly unrelated experiments such as electrolyte transport through nanotubes, nano-scale electrochemistry, NMR relaxometry and Surface Force Balance measurements, all probe electrical fluctuations: of the electric current, the charge and polarization, the field gradient (for quadrupolar nuclei) and the coupled mass/charge densities. By combining Statistical Mechanics with molecular and mesoscopic simulations, it is possible to predict the fluctuations of these observables from the dynamics of ions and solvent molecules, thereby enabling experimentalists to decipher the microscopic properties encoded in the measured electrical noise. In this presentation, I will illustrate this idea, focusing on the link between the electrode charge fluctuations in nanocapacitors, the electrochemical response, and the properties of the interfacial electrolyte. 

References

https://benrotenberg.github.io/erc-senses/