Interactions between colloids induced by a soft cross-linked polymer substrate
Soft Condensed Matter
2013-05-29 v1
Abstract
Using video-microscopy imaging we demonstrate the existence of a short-ranged equilibrium attraction between heavy silica colloids diffusing on soft surfaces of cross-linked polymer gels. The inter-colloid potential can be tuned by changing the gel stiffness or by coating the colloids with a polymer layer. On sufficiently soft substrates, the interaction induced by the polymer matrix leads to large-scale colloidal aggregation. We correlate the in-plane interaction with a colloid-surface attraction.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1106.3980,
title = {Interactions between colloids induced by a soft cross-linked polymer substrate},
author = {Lorenzo Di Michele and Taiki Yanagishima and Anthony R. Brewer and Jurij Kotar and Seth Fraden and Erika Eiser},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1106.3980},
year = {2013}
}