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

Thu 811:10-14:00P7.37Dielectric heating of interfacial waterStephan Gekle, 1 Douwe Bonthuis, 1 and Netz Roland 11 TU München, James Franck Str, 85748, Garching, GermanyThe basic mechanism of dielectric heating in bulk water - the rotation of the water moleculesinduced by an alternating electric field - is well understood and used in millions of kitchen microwavesaround the world. Yet, in biological organisms as well as the emerging branch of microfluidictechnology, most of the water is localized at various interfaces (cell membranes, channelwalls, etc.). In this talk, we will use molecular dynamics computer simulations to study the absorptioncharacteristics of such interfacial water when subjected to electro-magnetic radiation. Mostprominently, we find a shift of the absorption peak to much higher frequencies than what would beexpected based on the well-known bulk dielectric spectra.37