Surface structuring of particle laden drops using electric fields

Emulsion drops readily adsorb particles at their surfaces, which may lead to a fluid or solid layer encapsulating the drop, known as an armored drop. In this review, we discuss how electric fields can be used to manipulate colloidal surface structures, by dielectrophoretic or electro-hydrodynamic mechanisms and we also compare this to related phenomena in lipid bilayer vesicles. The phenomena discussed are important for a wide range of uses of particle laden drops, including emulsion stabilization, Janus or patchy mesocapsule-, scaffold- or other materials-production.