Material-dependent surface polarization impacts ionic current in strong confinement Ali Ehlen 1 , Alexandre dos Santos 4 , Felipe Jímenez-Ángeles 2 , Monica Olvera de la Cruz 1,2,3 1 Northwestern University, USA 2 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, USA
3 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University, USA 4 Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
To properly predict and design devices that incorporate ion flow in strong confinement, careful consideration must be taken to account for the effect of the confining surfaces on ion behavior. Here, we focus on the electrostatic response of the surfaces to the presence of ions. We look at ions confined by metallic, dielectric, and non-polarizable surfaces and show the importance of accounting for material-dependent surface polarization charge when studying ion-ion electrostatic interactions. We demonstrate that metallic surfaces and those with a high dielectric constant enhance ionic current by screening electrostatic attraction between opposite charges. Finally, we examine the impact of solvent and how it mediates ion-ion correlations. This work underscores a need to incorporate surface effects when designing iontronics devices in mixed environments.
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© The Author(s), 2023
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