Date of Graduation

2013

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Physics and Astronomy

Committee Chair

Boyd Edwards

Committee Co-Chair

Paul Cassak

Committee Member

Duncan Lorimer

Committee Member

Mikel Holcomb

Committee Member

Stephen Valentine

Abstract

Finite element numerical simulations are used to examine the effects of various parameters on synthetic charge-selective nanochannel systems in series with microchannels. In particular the origins of uidic ionic current rectification and the transient development of such systems in response to electric potential biases is explored. The origin of current rectification is these systems is found to be asymmetric concentration polarization. This leads to diffusion layers that form in response to an applied bias . The asymmetric diffusion layers may have 1D and higher dimensional origins. The systems are found to change over three time scales each associated with a different length scale. The related length scales are the electric double layer scale, the microchannel length, and the nanochannel length. Finally, we investigated how nanochannel-generated electroosmotic how affects the transient developments.

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