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1. Physical scaling for predicting shear viscosity and memory effects of lithium-ion battery cathode slurries

   https://doi.org/10.1039/D4SM01493F  

   Gupta, Yoshita; Liu, Qingsong; Richards, Jeffrey J (February 2025, Soft Matter)

   Lithium-ion battery cathodes are manufactured by coating slurries, liquid suspensions that typically include carbon black (CB), active material, and polymer binder. These slurries have a yield stress and complex rheology due to CB’s microstructural response to flow. While optimizing the formulation and processing of slurries is critical to manufacturing defect-free and high-performance cathodes, engineering the shear rheology of cathode slurries remains challenging. In this study, we conducted simultaneous rheo-electric measurements on 3 wt% CB suspensions in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone containing various loadings of active material NMC811 and polyvinylidene difluoride. Accounting for the changes in the infinite shear viscosity, the yield stress, and the medium viscosity due to the presence of NMC and polymers, we defined the differential relative viscosity. This differential relative viscosity, Δ𝜂𝑟, is a measure of the distance from the infinite shear rate, where carbon black agglomerates are fully broken down. We find that Δ𝜂𝑟 collapses all flow curves regardless of formulation with an empirical relationship Δ𝜂𝑟=2.18𝑀𝑛𝑓−0.92, indicating a quantitative prediction of the flow curve of cathode slurries across a wide range of formulation space. We then used electrical conductivity to identify and quantify shear-induced structure memory, evidenced in the ratio of the shear conductivity over the post-shear quiescent conductivity. We find that similar to the changes in the yield stress, increasing NMC concentration increases memory retention, and in contrast, the addition of PVDF erases memory effects. Our findings here will provide valuable insight into engineering the formulation and processing conditions of lithium-ion battery cathodes. 

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2. Quantifying the hydrodynamic contribution to electrical transport in non-Brownian suspensions

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2203470119  

   Lin, Han; Majji, Madhu V.; Cho, Noah; Zeeman, John R.; Swan, James W.; Richards, Jeffrey J. (July 2022, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   Electrical transport in semiconducting and metallic particle suspensions is an enabling feature of emerging grid-scale battery technologies. Although the physics of the transport process plays a key role in these technologies, no universal framework has yet emerged. Here, we examine the important contribution of shear flow to the electrical transport of non-Brownian suspensions. We find that these suspensions exhibit a strong dependence of the transport rate on the particle volume fraction and applied shear rate, which enables the conductivity to be dynamically changed by over 10 7 decades based on the applied shear rate. We combine experiments and simulations to conclude that the transport process relies on a combination of charge and particle diffusion with a rate that can be predicted using a quantitative physical model that incorporates the self-diffusion of the particles. 

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3. Laboratory study of bed shear stress in gradually varied flow over a sudden change in bed roughness

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10652-025-10024-6  

   Jamil, Muhammad Farrukh; Ting, Francis_C K; Kafle, Monika (April 2025, Environmental Fluid Mechanics)

   Abstract The evolution of bed shear stress in open-channel flow due to a sudden change in bed roughness was investigated experimentally for rough-to-smooth (RTS) and smooth-to-rough (STR) transitions. The velocity field was measured in the longitudinal-vertical plane from upstream to downstream using a Particle Image Velocimetry system. The bed shear stress was determined from the measured velocity profile and water depth using various methods. It was found that the variation of bed shear stress in gradually varied flow through a roughness transition was influenced by both flow depth and bottom roughness. In both RTS and STR transitions, the bed shear stress adjusted to the new bed condition almost immediately even though the velocity profile away from the bed was still evolving, but unlike external and close-conduit flows the bed shear stress in open-channel flows continued to evolve until the flow depth was uniform. It is shown that the evolution of bed shear stress in a STR transition is dependent on the choice of the displacement height on the rough bed, which affects the mixing length used to derive the logarithmic velocity profile and equivalent roughness. Bed shear stress variation consistent with published data was obtained when the$${k}_{s}/{d}_{90}$$ $k_s/d_{90}$ratio was determined as a function of the$$h/{d}_{90}$$ $h/d_{90}$ratio, where$${k}_{s}$$ $k_s$is the equivalent roughness height,$$h$$ $h$is the flow depth, and$${d}_{90}$$ $d_{90}$is the grain diameter with 90% of finer particles. 

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4. Shear-induced phase behavior of bidisperse jammed suspensions of soft particles

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0216758  

   Alrashdan, Rakan; Yankah, Harry Kojo; Cloître, Michel; Khabaz, Fardin (July 2024, Physics of Fluids)

   Particle dynamics simulations are used to determine the shear-induced microstructure and rheology of jammed suspensions of soft particles. These suspensions, known as soft particle glasses (SPGs), have an amorphous structure at rest but transform into ordered phases in strong shear flow when the particle size distribution is relatively monodisperse. Here, a series of bidisperse SPGs with different particle radii and number density ratios are considered, and their shear-induced phase diagrams are correlated with the macroscopic rheology at different shear rates and volume fractions. These shear-induced phase diagrams reveal that a combination of these parameters can lead to the emergence of various microstructures such as amorphous, layered, crystals, and in some cases, coexistence of amorphous and ordered phases. The evolution of the shear stress is correlated with the change in the microstructure and is a shear-activated process. Stress shows pseudo-steady behavior during an induction period before the final microstructural change leading to the formation of ordered structures. The outcomes provide a promising method to control the phase behavior of soft suspensions and build new self-assembled microstructures. 

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5. Sketched Nanoscale KTaO3-Based Superconducting Quantum Interference Device

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.15.011037  

   Yu, Muqing; Hougland, Nicholas; Du, Qianheng; Yang, Junyi; Biswas, Sayanwita; Ramachandran, Ranjani; Yang, Dengyu; Bhattacharya, Anand; Pekker, David; Irvin, Patrick; et al (February 2025, Physical Review X)

   The discovery of two-dimensional superconductivity in ${\mathrm{LaAlO}}_3/{\mathrm{KTaO}}_3$(111) and (110) interfaces has raised significant interest in this system. In this paper, we report the first successful fabrication of a direct current superconducting quantum interference device (dc-SQUID) in the KTO system. The key device elements, superconducting weak links, are created by conductive atomic force microscope lithography, which can reversibly control the conductivity at the LAO/KTO (110) interface with nanoscale resolution. The periodic modulation of the SQUID critical current $I_{\mathrm{c}}\left(B\right)$with magnetic field corresponds well with our theoretical modeling, which reveals a large kinetic inductance of the superconducting two-dimensional electron gas in KTO. The kinetic inductance of the SQUID is tunable by electrical gating from the back, due to the large dielectric constant of KTO. The demonstration of weak links and SQUIDs in KTO broadens the scope for exploring the underlying physics of KTO superconductivity, including the role of spin-orbit coupling, pairing symmetry, and inhomogeneity. It also promotes KTO as a versatile platform for a growing family of quantum devices, which could be applicable in the realm of quantum computing and information. 

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