Related papers: Colloidal aggregation and critical Casimir forces
In a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 156101 (2009)], we presented experiments on critical Casimir induced colloidal aggregation in a system with negligibly small van der Waals forces. We presented a simple model based on a competition…
We investigate the behavior of colloidal particles immersed in a binary liquid mixture of water and 2,6-lutidine in the presence of a chemically patterned substrate. Close to the critical point of the mixture, the particles are subjected to…
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…
In soft and condensed matter physics, effective interactions often emerge as a result of the spatial confinement of a fluctuating field. For instance, microscopic particles in a binary liquid mixture are subject to critical Casimir forces…
We investigate the phase behaviour of mixtures of two populations of colloidal particles dispersed in a binary solvent system near its critical composition. The surfaces of particles are chemically modified to elicit a specific solvent…
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…
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…
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…
We study theoretically and experimentally the solvent-mediated critical Casimir force acting on colloidal particles immersed in a binary liquid mixture of water and 2,6-lutidine and close to substrates which are chemically patterned with…
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…
We study the critical Casimir interaction between two spherical colloids immersed in a binary liquid mixture close to its critical demixing point. The surface of each colloid prefers one species of the mixture with the exception of a…
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…
Colloids immersed in a critical or near-critical binary liquid mixture and close to a chemically patterned substrate are subject to normal and lateral critical Casimir forces of dominating strength. For a single colloid we calculate these…
We present an experimental and theoretical study of the phase behavior of a binary mixture of colloids with opposite adsorption preferences in a critical solvent. As a result of the attractive and repulsive critical Casimir forces, the…
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…
The spatial suppression of order parameter fluctuations in a critical media produces Critical Casimir forces acting on confining surfaces. This scenario is realized in a critical binary mixture near the demixing transition point that…
Using the critical Casimir force, we study the attractive-strength dependence of diffusion-limited colloidal aggregation in microgravity. By means of near field scattering we measure both the static and dynamic structure factor of the…
When a colloidal suspension is dried, capillary pressure may overwhelm repulsive electrostatic forces, assembling aggregates that are out of thermal equilibrium. This poorly understood process confers cohesive strength to many geological…
Capillary attraction between identical millimeter sized spheres floating at a liquid-air interface and the resulting aggregation is investigated at low Reynolds number. We show that the measured capillary forces between two spheres as a…
We investigate bridging and aggregation of two colloidal particles in a near-critical binary mixture when the fluid far from the particles is outside the coexistence (CX) curve and is rich in the component disfavored by the colloid…