Related papers: Colloidal aggregation and critical Casimir forces
We propose a definitive test of whether plates involved in Casimir experiments should be modeled with ballistic or diffusive electrons--a prominent controversy highlighted by a number of conflicting experiments. The unambiguous test we…
Using general scaling arguments combined with mean-field theory we investigate the critical ($T \simeq T_c$) and off-critical ($T\ne T_c$) behavior of the Casimir forces in fluid films of thickness $L$ governed by dispersion forces and…
We report an improved dynamic determination of the Casimir pressure between two plane plates obtained using a micromachined torsional oscillator. The main improvements in the current experiment are a significant suppression of the surface…
We simulate structural phase behavior of polymer-grafted colloidal particles by molecular Monte Carlo technique. Interparticle potential, which has a finite repulsive square-step outside a rigid core of the colloid, was previously confirmed…
The effects of purely elastic collisions on the dynamics of heavy inertial particles is investigated in a three-dimensional random incompressible flow. It is shown that the statistical properties of inter-particle separations and relative…
The elastic and capillary interactions between a pair of colloidal particles trapped on top of a nematic film are studied theoretically for large separations $d$. The elastic interaction is repulsive and of quadrupolar type, varying as…
The effective interaction between two planar walls immersed in a fluid is investigated by use of Density Functional Theory in the super-critical region of the phase diagram. A hard core Yukawa model of fluid is studied with special…
Dynamic particle-scale numerical simulations are used to show that the shear thickening observed in dense colloidal, or Brownian, suspensions is of a similar nature to that observed in non-colloidal suspensions, i.e., a stress-induced…
This article is divided in three sections. In the first section we briefly review some high precision experiments on the Casimir force, underlying an important aspect of the analysis of the data. In the second section we discuss our recent…
We study a model in which particles interact through a hard-core repulsion complemented by a short-ranged attractive potential, of the kind found in colloidal suspensions. Combining theoretical and numerical work we locate the line of…
Sheared concentrated colloids with short range polymer coats are examined via simulations. Distributions of force are found to be sums of exponentials. The 'hydrodynamic clustering' underlying the shear thickening effect is shown, in this…
An extension of the Asakura-Oosawa-Vrij model of hard sphere colloids and non-adsorbing polymers, that takes polymer non-ideality into account through a repulsive stepfunction pair potential between polymers, is studied with grand canonical…
Electrostatic forces between small groups of colloidal particles are measured using blinking optical tweezers. When the electrostatic screening length is significantly larger than the particle radius, forces are found to be non-pairwise…
Kelvin probe force microscopy at normal pressure was performed by two different groups on the same Au-coated planar sample used to measure the Casimir interaction in a sphere-plane geometry. The obtained voltage distribution was used to…
Colloidal particles are not simple rigid particles, in general an isolated particle is a system with many degrees of freedom in its own right, e.g., the counterions around a charged colloidal particle.The behaviour of model colloidal…
We study, using Monte Carlo simulations, the interaction between charged colloidal particles confined to the air-water interface. The dependence of force on ionic strength and counterion valence is explored. For 1:1 electrolyte, we find…
We consider the Casimir effect in a (1+1)-dimensional model with a critical mode. Such a mode gives rise to a condensate described by the nonlinear Gross-Pitaevskii equation. In the condensate, there are two sources of the Casimir force;…
When comparing experimental results with theoretical predictions of the Casimir force, the accuracy of the theory is as important as the precision of experiments. Here we evaluate the Casimir force when finite conductivity of the reflectors…
Based on renormalization group concepts and explicit mean field calculations we study the universal contribution to the effective force and torque acting on an ellipsoidal colloidal particle which is dissolved in a critical fluid and is…
Intermolecular interactions are pivotal for aggregation, solvation, and crystallization. We demonstrate that the collective strong coupling of several molecules to a single optical mode results in notable changes in the molecular…