Related papers: Depletion forces near a soft surface
We investigate the equilibrium properties of a colloidal solution in contact with a soft interface. As a result of symmetry breaking, surface effects are generally prevailing in confined colloidal systems. In this Letter, particular…
We study the adsorption of polymer chains on a fluctuating surface. Physical examples are provided by polymer adsorption at the rough interface between two non-miscible liquids, or on a membrane. In a mean-field approach, we find that the…
We study the effective forces acting between colloidal particles trapped at a fluid interface which itself is exposed to a pressure field. To this end we apply what we call the ``force approach'', which relies solely on the condition of…
The efficiency of soft particles to stabilize emulsions is examined by measuring their desorption free energy, i.e., the mechanical work required to detach the particle from a fluid interface. Here, we consider rubber-like elastic as well…
Interfacial properties of colloid--polymer mixtures are examined within an effective one--component representation, where the polymer degrees of freedom are traced out, leaving a fluid of colloidal particles interacting via polymer--induced…
Soft particles can be better emulsifiers than hard particles because they stretch at fluid interfaces. This deformation can increase adsorption energies by orders of magnitude relative to rigid particles. The deformation of a particle at an…
The position of a colloidal particle trapped in an external field thermally fluctuates at equilibrium. As is well known, the ambient fluid is not a simple heat bath and the particle mass appears to increase, which influences the mean square…
In a mixed suspension of rods and small polymer coils, the rods adsorb onto a hard wall in contact with the suspension. This adsorption is studied in the low density of rods limit. It is driven by depletion forces and is much stronger for…
In this paper, we study the equilibrium properties of polymer chains end-tethered to a fluid membrane. The loss of conformational entropy of the polymer results in an inhomogeneous pressure field that we calculate for gaussian chains. We…
To describe the full spectrum of surface fluctuations of the interface between phase-separated colloid-polymer mixtures from low scattering vector q (classical capillary wave theory) to high q (bulk-like fluctuations), one must take account…
The effective interaction energy of a colloidal sphere in a suspension containing small amounts of non-ionic polymers and a flat glass surface has been measured and calculated using total internal reflection microscopy (TIRM) and a novel…
Deformable colloids and macromolecules adsorb at interfaces, as they decrease the interfacial energy between the two media. The deformability, or softness, of these particles plays a pivotal role in the properties of the interface. In this…
We consider the interactions between two uncharged planar macroscopic surfaces immersed in an electrolyte solution which are induced by interfacial selectivity. These forces are taken into account by introducing a depletion free-energy…
Many microfluidics devices, coating processes or diphasic flows involve the motion of a liquid meniscus on a wet wall. This motion induces a specific viscous force, that exhibits a non-linear dependency in the meniscus velocity. We propose…
Surface effects are generally prevailing in confined colloidal systems. Here we report on dispersed nanoparticles close to a fluid membrane. Exact results regarding the static organization are derived for a dilute solution of non-adhesive…
Depletion interactions between colloidal particles dispersed in a fluid medium are effective interactions induced by the presence of other types of colloid. They are not instantaneous but build up in time. We show by means Brownian dynamics…
We consider a system of spherical colloidal particles with a size polydispersity and use a simple van der Waals description in order to study the combined effect of both the polydispersity and the spatial non-uniformity induced by a planar…
We propose that several mechanisms contribute to friction in a polymer melt adsorbed at a structured surface. The first one is the well known disentanglement of bulk polymer chains from the surface layer. However, if the surface is ideal at…
We show that to account for the full spectrum of surface fluctuations from low scattering vector qd << 1 (classical capillary wave theory) to high qd > 1 (bulk-like fluctuations), one must take account of the interface's bending rigidity at…
Hypothesis: A broad range of phenomena, such as emulsification and emulsion stability, foam formation or liquid evaporation, are closely related to the dynamics of adsorbing colloidal particles. Elucidation of the mechanisms implied is key…