Related papers: Effective interactions of colloids on nematic film…
Surface effects are generally prevailing in confined colloidal systems. Here we report on dispersed nanoparticles close to a fluid membrane. Exact results regarding the static organization are derived for a dilute solution of non-adhesive…
Artificial soft matter systems have appeared as important tools to harness mechanical motion for microscale manipulation. Typically, this motion is driven either by the external fields or by mutual interaction between the colloids. In the…
Recent experiments have shown that various structures may be formed during the evaporative dewetting of thin films of colloidal suspensions. Nano-particle deposits of strongly branched `flower-like', labyrinthine and network structures are…
This paper presents the results of a rheological study of thermotropic nematic colloids aggregated into cellular structures. Small sterically stabilised PMMA particles dispersed in a liquid crystal matrix densely pack on cell interfaces,…
The interaction between two disks immersed in a 2D nematic is investigated (i) analitically using the tensor order parameter formalism for the nematic configuration around isolated disks and (ii) numerically using finite element methods…
The effects of thermal coupling between two thin liquid layers, separated by a gas layer, are discussed. The liquid layers undergo long-wavelength instabilities driven by gravitational and thermocapillary stresses. To study the dynamics,…
Entropic forces in colloidal suspensions and in polymer-colloid systems are of long-standing and continuing interest. Experiments show how entropic forces can be used to control the self-assembly of colloidal particles. Significant advances…
Colloidal systems observed in video microscopy are often analysed using the displacements correlation matrix of particle positions. In non-thermal systems, the inverse of this matrix can be interpreted as a pair-interaction potential…
Colloidal systems find important applications ranging from fabrication of photonic crystals to direct probing of phenomena typically encountered in atomic crystals and glasses. New applications - such as nanoantennas, plasmonic sensors, and…
We discuss instabilities of fluid films of nanoscale thickness, with a particular focus on films where the destabilising mechanism allows for linear instability, metastability, and absolute stability. Our study is motivated by nematic…
The electrostatic interaction between pairs of spherical or macroscopically long, parallel cylindrical colloids trapped at fluid interfaces is studied theoretically for the case of small inter-particle separations. Starting from the…
Self-assembly of nanoparticles can enable composites with pre-designed properties but remains challenged by reproducing structural diversity of atomic and molecular crystals. We combine anisotropic elastic and weakly screened electrostatic…
Many biological systems fold thin sheets of lipid membrane into complex three-dimensional structures. This microscopic origami is often mediated by the adsorption and self-assembly of proteins on a membrane. As a model system to study…
In recent years, there has been a considerable interest in the mechanics of soft objects meeting fluid interfaces (elasto-capillary interactions). In this work we experimentally examine the case of a fluid resting on a thin film of rigid…
Many living and artificial systems show a similar emergent behavior and collective motions on different scales, starting from swarms of bacteria to synthetic active particles, herds of mammals and crowds of people. What all these systems…
We investigate effective interactions between a colloidal particle, immersed in a binary mixture of smaller spheres, and a semipermeable membrane. The colloid is modeled as a big hard sphere and the membrane is represented as an infinitely…
Capillary forces guide the motion of biomolecular condensates, water-borne insects, and breakfast cereal. These surface-mediated interactions can be harnessed to build units into materials with exotic properties deriving from mesoscale…
The phase behavior of colloidal particles embedded in a binary fluid is influenced by wetting layers surrounding each particle. The free energy of the fluid film depends on its morphology, i.e., on size, shape and connectivity. Under rather…
In recent years, slippery surfaces have attracted significant interest due to their excellent liquid-repellent properties and their potential in diverse commercial applications. Such surfaces are prepared by coating functionalized solid…
We calculate the effective forces on hard disks near walls embedded inside active nematic liquid crystals. When the disks are sufficiently close to the wall and the flows are sufficiently slow, we can obtain exact expressions for the…