Electromechanics of Particles

Rating:
Summary: Behavior of polarizable particles in electric/magnetic field
Review: Professor Jones, renowned author of numerous scientific papers on this topic and the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Electrostatics, presents us with the monograph on the interaction of the electric or magnetic field with non-charged small, but nevertheless macroscopic particles. The force or torque exerted on particles by the field can result in migratory movement in a non-homogeneous field (dielectrophoresis), rotation of particles in a rotating electric field, orientational change of non-spherical particles, and formation of aggregates of particles known as pearl chains. The tome is a collection of important results in this field, many of them are direct results of Professor Jones and his coworkers.

Throughout the book, only classical electrostatics and magnetostatics are employed, i.e. particles are modelled as bodies and shells with given (complex) dielectric permittivity (magnetic permeability in the magnetostatic case), immersed in a homogeneous medium with different electric (or magnetic) properties. This is not a particular drawback, since there is an abundance of literature catering for readers interested in mezzoscopic phenomena.

It is clear that Professor Jones' intention was to make the book accessible not only to physicists, but first and foremost to the intended audience of engineers and scienctists from different branches of science. Thus, for instance, Chapter 2 introduces the effective moment model, which is used throughout the book rather than mathematically more complex the Maxwell tensor formalism. Even though the book is a scientific monograph, mathematics used as a rule does not exceed the standard repertoire of any textbook on electromagnetism, such as multipolar expansion. In addition, experimental scientists will probably appreciate numerous results presented as simple formulas, suitable for comparing with experimentally obtained values.

Investigation of the interaction of electric and magnetic field with particles is gaining importance, in particular in biotechnology. As standard textbooks on electromagnetism rarely proceed beyond Clausius-Mossotti law, it is difficult for someone new to this field to find where to start. This monograph could therefore serve as a valuable introduction and reference to this field for a working researcher or a graduate student.