Related papers: Critical Casimir interactions around the consolute…
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…
If colloidal solute particles are suspended in a solvent close to its critical point, they act as cavities in a fluctuating medium and thereby restrict and modify the fluctuation spectrum in a way which depends on their relative…
Colloids immersed in a critical binary liquid mixture are subject to critical Casimir forces (CCFs) because they confine its concentration fluctuations and influence the latter via effective surface fields. To date, CCFs have only been…
If a fluctuating medium is confined, the ensuing perturbation of its fluctuation spectrum generates Casimir-like effective forces acting on its confining surfaces. Near a continuous phase transition of such a medium the corresponding order…
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…
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…
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 study the phase behavior of colloidal suspensions the solvents of which are considered to be binary liquid mixtures undergoing phase segregation. We focus on the thermodynamic region close to the critical point of the accompanying…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
Recent experiments have measured the critical Casimir force acting on a colloid immersed in a binary liquid mixture near its continuous demixing phase transition and exposed to a chemically structured substrate. Motivated by these…
Among the various kinds of effective forces in soft matter, the spatial range and the direction of the so-called critical Casimir force - which is generated by the enhanced thermal fluctuations close to a continuous phase transition - can…
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…
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…
Systems as diverse as binary mixtures and inclusions in biological membranes, and many more, can be described effectively by interacting spins. When the critical fluctuations in these systems are constrained by boundary conditions, critical…
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…