Self Assembly Modulated by Interactions of Two Heterogeneously Charged Surfaces

Recent experiments have measured attractive interactions between two surfaces that each bear two molecular species with opposite charge. Such surfaces form charged domains of finite size. We present a theoretical model that predicts the dependence of the domain size, phase behavior and the interlayer forces as a function of spacing and salt concentration for two such interacting surfaces. A strong correlation between two length scales, the screening length and the surface separation, at the spinodal is shown. Remarkably, the first-order phase transition to infinite sized domains depends logarithmically on the ratio of the domain size to the molecular size. Finally, we fit the predicted pressure with experiments.