Related papers: Critical Casimir forces in colloidal suspensions o…
From experimental studies it is well-known that colloidal particles suspended in a near-critical binary solvent exhibit interesting aggregation phenomena, often associated with colloidal phase transitions, and assumed to be driven by…
If two ore more bodies are immersed in a critical fluid critical fluctuations of the order parameter generate long ranged forces between these bodies. Due to the underlying mechanism these forces are close analogues of the well known…
A recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 156101 (2009)] reports the experimental observation of aggregation of colloidal particles dispersed in a liquid mixture of heavy water and 3-methylpyridine. The experimental data are interpreted in…
Critical Casimir forces can play an important role for applications in nano-science and nanotechnology, owing to their piconewton strength, nanometric action range, fine tunability as a function of temperature, and exquisite dependence on…
The critical Casimir effect provides a thermodynamic analogue of the well-known quantum mechanical Casimir effect. It acts between two surfaces immersed in a critical binary liquid mixture, and results from the confinement of concentration…
We consider an ensemble of spherical colloidal particles immersed in a near-critical solvent such as a binary liquid mixture close to its critical demixing point. The emerging long-ranged fluctuations of the corresponding order parameter of…
Within mean field theory, we investigate the bridging transition between a pair of parallel cylindrical colloids immersed in a binary liquid mixture as a solvent which is close to its critical consolute point $T_c$. We determine the…
Some time ago, Fisher and de Gennes pointed out that long-ranged correlations in a fluid close to its critical point Tc cause distinct forces between immersed colloidal particles which can even lead to flocculation [C. R. Acad. Sc. Paris B…
Recent experimental realizations of the critical Casimir effect have been implemented by monitoring colloidal particles immersed in a binary liquid mixture near demixing and exposed to a chemically structured substrate. In particular,…
Mesoscopic particles immersed in a critical fluid experience long-range Casimir forces due to critical fluctuations. Using field theoretical methods, we investigate the Casimir interaction between two spherical particles and between a…
We present a numerical study of the effective potential $V_\mathrm{eff}$ between two hard-sphere colloids dispersed in a solvent of interacting particles, for several values of temperature and solvent density, approaching the solvent…
We develop a computational study of Casimir forces between three dimensional (3D) finite objects with an internal granular structure. The objects in the model consist of a finite arrangement of nanometer sized spherical particles having a…
We report on salt-dependent interaction potentials of a single charged particle suspended in a binary liquid mixture above a charged wall. For symmetric boundary conditions (BC) we observe attractive particle-wall interaction forces which…
Percolation and critical phenomena show common features such as scaling and universality. Colloidal particles, immersed in a solvent close to criticality, experience long-range effective forces, named critical Casimir forces. %These…
Recent experiments have demonstrated a fluctuation-induced lateral trapping of spherical colloidal particles immersed in a binary liquid mixture near its critical demixing point and exposed to chemically patterned substrates. Inspired by…
Within mean-field theory we calculate universal scaling functions associated with critical Casimir forces for a system consisting of three parallel cylindrical colloids immersed in a near-critical binary liquid mixture. For several…
We study the behavior of the critical Casimir force and its interplay with the van der Waals force acting between two parallel slabs separated at a distance $L$ from each other confining a non-polar simple fluid or a binary liquid mixture.…
An exact statistical mechanical derivation is given of the critical Casimir interactions between two defects in a planar lattice-gas Ising model. Each defect is a group of nearest-neighbor spins with modified coupling constants. Such a…
We study colloidal particles with chemically inhomogeneous surfaces suspended in a critical binary liquid mixture. The inhomogeneous particle surface is composed of patches with alternating adsorption preferences for the two components of…
Critical Casimir interactions represent a perfect example of bath-induced forces at mesoscales. These forces may have a relevant role in the living systems as well as a role in the design of nanomachines fueled by environmental…