Depletion potentials near geometrically structured substrates
Soft Condensed Matter
2009-11-10 v1
Abstract
Using the recently developed so-called White Bear version of Rosenfeld's Fundamental Measure Theory we calculate the depletion potentials between a hard-sphere colloidal particle in a solvent of small hard spheres and simple models of geometrically structured substrates: a right-angled wedge or edge. In the wedge geometry, there is a strong attraction beyond the corresponding one near a planar wall that significantly influences the structure of colloidal suspensions in wedges. In accordance with an experimental study, for the edge geometry we find a free energy barrier of the order of several which repels a big colloidal particle from the edge.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0303131,
title = {Depletion potentials near geometrically structured substrates},
author = {P. Bryk and R. Roth and M. Schoen and S. Dietrich},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0303131},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
7 pages, 7 figures