8th Liquid Matter Conference September 6-10, 2011 Wien, Austria ...

P5.92Wed 711:10-14:00Dielectric nanoparticles in an external electric field:many-body effects, polarizability and the optimaldimension ratio for alignment of nanorods,nanoplatelets, nanobowls and nanodumbbellsBas Kwaadgras, 1 Maarten Verdult, 1 Marjolein Dijkstra, 1 and René van Roij 11 Utrecht University, Princetonplein 1, 3584 CC, Utrecht, NetherlandsWe employ the Coupled Dipole Method (CDM) to calculate the polarizability tensor of variousanisotropic dielectric clusters of polarizable atoms, such as cuboid-, bowl- and dumbbell-shapednanoparticles. Starting from a Hamiltonian of a many-atom system, we investigate how this tensordepends on the size and shape of the cluster. We use the polarizability tensor to calculate the energydifference associated with turning a nanocluster from its least to its most favorable orientation ina homogeneous static electric field, and we determine the cluster dimension for which this energydifference exceeds the thermal energy such that particle alignment by the field is possible. Weshow that this dimension depends on the shape of the cluster and that rods, platelets, bowls anddumbbells have a nontrivial optimal particle dimension ratio, where the size parameter for whichthe particle becomes alignable is minimal.92