Charge frustration in complex fluids and in electronic systems

TL;DR

This paper explores charge frustration as a unifying concept to describe diverse physical systems like complex fluids and electronic materials, linking microscopic properties to mesoscopic structures.

Contribution

It introduces a minimalist charge-frustrated model with one energy and two length scales, connecting microscopic details to observed structures in different systems.

Findings

Model successfully relates microscopic properties to mesoscopic structures

Parameters determined from microscopic properties for specific systems

Unified framework for complex fluids and electronic systems

Abstract

The idea of charge frustration is applied to describe the properties of such diverse physical systems as oil-water-surfactant mixtures and metal-ammonia solutions. The minimalist charge-frustrated model possesses one energy scale and two length scales. For oil-water-surfactant mixtures, these parameters have been determined starting from the microscopic properties of the physical systems under study. Thus microscopic properties are successfully related to the observed mesoscopic structure.