Structural transitions and long-time self-diffusion of interacting colloids confined by a parabolic potential.

We report on the ordering and dynamics of interacting colloidal particles confined by a parabolic potential. By means of Brownian dynamics simulations, we find that by varying the magnitude of the trap stiffness, it is possible to control the dimension of the system and, thus, explore both the structural transitions and the long-time self-diffusion coefficient as a function of the degree of confinement. We particularly study the structural ordering in the directions perpendicular and parallel to the confinement.

Hydrodynamic correlations in three-particle colloidal systems in harmonic traps.

We report on the hydrodynamic correlations between colloids immersed in a low Reynolds number fluid. We consider colloidal arrays composed of three particles; each colloid is trapped in a single harmonic potential and interacts with the other colloids only via hydrodynamic forces. We focus on the role of a third body in the two-body correlation functions.