Charged colloids, polyelectrolytes and biomolecules viewed as strongly coupled Coulomb systems

A brief review is given on recent studies of charged soft matter solutions, as modelled by the 'primitive' approach of strongly coupled Coulomb systems, where the solvent just enters as a dielectric background. These include charged colloids, biological macromolecules such as proteins and DNA, polyelectrolytes and polyelectrolyte stars. Also some original results are presented on colloid–polyelectrolyte complex formation near walls and on the anomalous fluid structure of polyelectrolyte stars as a function of increasing concentration.