Related papers: Microstructure of polydisperse colloidal gels
We compute the equilibrium concentration of stacking faults and point defects in polydisperse hard-sphere crystals. We find that, while the concentration of stacking faults remains similar to that of monodisperse hard sphere crystals, the…
We investigate the collective behavior of suspended thermoresponsive microgels, that expel solvent and subsequently decrease in size upon heating. Using a binary mixture of differently thermoresponsive microgels, we demonstrate how…
The close packing density of log-normal and bimodal distributed, surface-adsorbed particles or discs in 2D is studied by numerical simulation. For small spread in particle size, the system orders in a polycrystalline structure of hexagonal…
We perform numerical simulations of purely repulsive soft colloidal particles interacting via a generalized elastic potential and constrained to a two-dimensional plane and to the surface of a spherical shell. For the planar case, we…
Computer simulations give precious insight into the microscopic behavior of supercooled liquids and glasses, but their typical time scales are orders of magnitude shorter than the experimentally relevant ones. We recently closed this gap…
Dynamical polydispersity in single-particle properties, for example a fluctuating particle size, shape, charge density, etc., is intrinsic to responsive colloids (RCs), such as biomacromolecules or microgels, but is typically not resolved…
We present a method for discovering dense packings of general convex hard particles and apply it to study the dense packing behavior of a one-parameter family of particles with tetrahedral symmetry representing a deformation of the ideal…
We consider depletion effects of a pear-shaped colloidal particle in a hard-sphere solvent, for two different model realisations of the pear-shaped colloidal particle. The two models are the pear hard Gaussian overlap (PHGO) particles and…
The densest amorphous packing of rigid particles is known as random close packing. It has long been appreciated that higher densities are achieved by using collections of particles with a variety of sizes. The variety of sizes is often…
We use confocal microscopy to study the motions of particles in concentrated colloidal systems. Near the glass transition, diffusive motion is inhibited, as particles spend time trapped in transient ``cages'' formed by neighboring…
Responsive particles, such as biomacromolecules or hydrogels, display a broad and polymodal distribution of conformations and have thus the ability to change their properties (e.g, size, shape, charge density, etc.) substantially in…
Particle size polydispersity can help to inhibit crystallization of the hard-sphere fluid into close-packed structures at high packing fractions and thus is often employed to create model glass-forming systems. Nonetheless, it is known that…
Dynamical heterogeneities in a colloidal fluid close to gelation are studied by means of computer simulations. A clear distinction between some fast particles and the rest, slow ones, is observed, yielding a picture of the gel composed by…
In bidisperse particle mixtures varying in size or density alone, large particles rise (driven by percolation) and heavy particles sink (driven by buoyancy). When the two particle species differ from each other in both size and density, the…
The collision dynamics of hard spheres and cylindrical pores is solved exactly, which is the minimal model for a regularly porous membrane. Nonequilibrium event-driven molecular dynamics simulations are used to show that the permeability…
We employ a novel Monte Carlo simulation scheme to elucidate the stabilization of neutral colloidal microspheres by means of highly-charged nanoparticles [V. Tohver et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98, 8950 (2001)]. In accordance with…
We investigate the segregation of a dense binary mixture of granular particles that only differ in their restitution coefficient. The mixture is vertically vibrated in the presence of gravity. We find a partial segregation of the species,…
Computer simulations were done of the mean square displacement (MSD) of tracer particles in colloidal gels formed by diffusion or reaction limited aggregation of hard spheres. The diffusion coefficient was found to be determined by the…
The self-assembly of particles into organized structures is a key feature of living organisms and a major engineering challenge. While it may proceed through the binding of perfectly matched, puzzle-pieces-like particles, many other…
We experimentally investigate the profile and morphology of the ring-like deposits obtained after evaporation of a sessile water droplet containing polystyrene colloidal particles on a hydrophilic glass substrate. In particular, the coupled…