Related papers: Directional depletion interactions in shaped parti…
The influence of quadrupolar interactions on the structure of small clusters is investigated by adding a point quadrupole of variable strength to the Lennard-Jones potential. Competition arises between sheet-like arrangements of the…
For partially wetting, ellipsoidal colloids trapped at a fluid interface, their effective, interface--mediated interactions of capillary and fluctuation--induced type are analyzed. For contact angles different from 90$^o$, static interface…
The design of complex materials and the formation of specific patterns often arise from the properties of the individual building blocks. In this respect, colloidal systems offer a unique opportunity because nowadays they can be synthesized…
We study the effects of the optical binding force on wavelength sized colloidal particles free to move in a counter-propagating beam. This work is motivated by the concept of using optical binding to direct the assembly of large numbers of…
To prevent the flocculation and phase separation of nanoparticles in solution, nanoparticles are often functionalized with short chain surfactants. Here we present fully-atomistic molecular dynamics simulations which characterize how these…
Above a certain density threshold, suspensions of rod-like colloidal particles form system-spanning networks. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we investigate how the depletion forces caused by spherical particles affect these networks in…
We report an experimental study on the manipulation of colloidal particles in a drop sitting on a hydrogel. The manipulation is achieved by diffusiophoresis, which describes a directed motion of particles induced by solute gradients. By…
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…
We study the angular scattering properties of individual core-shell nanoparticles that support simultaneously both electric and optically-induced magnetic resonances of different orders. In contrast to the approach to suppress the backward…
Designing microscopic and nanoscopic self-propelled particles and characterising their motion has become a major scientific challenge over the past decades. To this purpose, phoretic effects, namely propulsion mechanisms relying on local…
We derive the trapping energy of a colloidal particle at a liquid interface with contact angle h and principal curvatures c1 and c2. The boundary conditions at the particle surface are significantly simplified by introducing the shift e of…
While colloids are promising building blocks for the self-assembly of materials with novel microstructures, their numerous tunable parameters inhibit brute force searching for appropriate parameter combinations that yield self-assembly of a…
The effective interaction between charged colloidal particles confined between two planar like-charged walls is investigated using computer simulations of the primitive model describing asymmetric electrolytes. In detail, we calculate the…
Ordering nanoparticles into a desired super-structure is often crucial for their technological applications. We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the assembly of nanoparticles in a polymer brush randomly grafted to a planar…
The depletion interactions between two colloidal plates or between two colloidal spheres, induced by interacting polymers in a good solvent, are calculated theoretically and by computer simulations. A simple analytical theory is shown to be…
A novel method to investigate the compaction behaviour of cohesive powders is presented. As a sample, a highly porous agglomerate formed by random ballistic deposition (RBD) of micron sized spherical particles is used. A nanomanipulator…
Controlling the flow of matter down to micrometer-scale confinement is of central importance in materials and environmental sciences, with direct applications in nano-microfluidics, drug delivery and biothechnology. Currents of…
Hard spheres in Newtonian fluids serve as paradigms for Non-Newtonian materials phenomena exhibited by colloidal suspensions. A recent experimental study (Cheng et al. 2011 Science, 333, 1276) showed that upon application of shear to such a…
Elastic sheets with macroscopic dimensions are easy to deform by bending and stretching. Yet shaping nanometric sheets by mechanical manipulation is hard. Here we show that nanoparticle self-assembly could be used to this end. We…
To describe many-particle systems suspended in incompressible low-Reynolds-number fluids, effective hydrodynamic interactions can be introduced. Here, we consider particles embedded in elastic media. The effective elastic interactions…