Related papers: Phase diagram and effective shape of semi-flexible…
The linear and nonlinear rheological behavior of two rod-like particle suspensions as a function of concentration is studied using small amplitude oscillatory shear, steady shear and capillary breakup extensional rheometry. The rod-like…
The behavior of a colloidal suspension of rod-like {\it fd} viruses in the nematic phase, subjected to steady state and transient shear flows is studied. The monodisperse nature of these rods combined with relatively small textural…
We formulate a density functional theory that describes the phase behavior of hard rods and depleting polymers, as realized in recent experiments on suspensions of \emph{fd} virus and non-adsorbing polymer. The theory predicts the relative…
We construct colloidal ``sticky'' rods from the semi-flexible filamentous fd virus and temperature-sensitive polymers poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM). The phase diagram of fd-PNIPAM system becomes independent of ionic strength at high…
We present the first experimental measurements of the isotropic and nematic phases of mixtures of thin, charged semiflexible fd virus, and thick, fd-PEG created by covalently grafting poly-(ethylene glycol) to the the surface of fd, rods.…
The viruses studied are genetically engineered, charged, semiflexible filamentous bacteriophages that are structurally identical to M13 virus, but differ either in contour length or surface charge. While varying contour length (L) we assume…
Complex fluids containing low concentrations of slender colloidal rods can display a high viscosity, while little flow is needed to thin the fluid. This feature makes slender rods essential constituents in industrial applications and…
We have prepared a homologous series of filamentous viruses with varying contour length using molecular cloning techniques. These viruses are monodisperse enough to form a stable smectic phase. Two systems are studied. The first system…
We explicitly calculate the orientation-dependent second virial coefficient of short charged rods in an electrolytic solvent, assuming the rod-rod interactions to be a pairwise sum of hard-core and segmental screened-Coulomb repulsions.…
We compute the entropic interactions between two colloidal spheres immersed in a dilute suspension of semi-flexible rods. Our model treats the semi-flexible rod as a bent rod at fixed angle, set by the rod contour and persistence lengths.…
We present experimental measurements of the cholesteric-smectic phase transition of suspensions of charged semiflexible rods as a function of rod flexibility and surface charge. The rod particles consist of the bacteriophage M13 and closely…
We report on the dynamics in colloidal suspensions of stiff viral rods, called fd-Y21M. This mutant filamentous virus exhibits a persistence length 3.5 times larger than the wild-type fd-wt. Such a virus system can be used as a model system…
We report a study of the cholesteric phase in monodisperse suspensions of the rod-like virus fd sterically stabilized with the polymer polyethylene glycol (PEG). After coating the virus with neutral polymers, the phase diagram and nematic…
Colloidal systems offer unique opportunities for the study of phase formation and structure since their characteristic length scales are accessible to visible light. As a model system the two dimensional assembly of colloidal magnetic and…
We present a scaled particle density functional study of two-dimensional binary mixtures of hard convex particles with one or both species being ellipses. In particular, we divide our study into two parts. The first part is devoted to the…
In the first part of this paper, an approximate theory is developed for the leading order concentration dependence of the sedimentation coefficient for rod-like colloids/polymers/macromolecules. To first order in volume fraction $\phi$ of…
We demonstrate that a semiflexible bundle of wormlike chains exhibits a state-dependent bending stiffness that alters fundamentally its scaling behavior with respect to the standard wormlike chain. We explore the equilibrium conformational…
Filamentous bacteriophages such as fd-like viruses are monodisperse rod-like colloids that have well defined properties: diameter, length, rigidity, charge and chirality. Engineering those viruses leads to a library of colloidal rods which…
We study the phase behavior of bowl-shaped particles using computer simulations. These particles were found experimentally to form a meta-stable worm-like fluid phase in which the bowl-shaped particles have a strong tendency to stack on top…
We report on single-particle dynamics of strongly interacting filamentous fd virus particles in the liquid-crystalline columnar state in aqueous solution. From fluorescence microscopy we find that rare, discrete events take place, in which…