Lane formation in gravitationally driven colloid mixtures consisting of up to three different particle sizes.

Brownian dynamics simulations are utilized to study segregation phenomena far from thermodynamic equilibrium. In the present study, we expand upon the analysis of binary colloid mixtures and introduce a third particle species to further our understanding of colloidal systems. Gravitationally driven, spherical colloids immersed in an implicit solvent are confined in two-dimensional linear microchannels.

Salt-concentration-dependent nucleation rates in low-metastability colloidal charged sphere melts containing small amounts of doublets.

We determined bulk crystal nucleation rates in aqueous suspensions of charged spheres at low metastability. Experiments were performed in dependence on electrolyte concentration and for two different particle number densities. The time-dependent nucleation rate shows a pronounced initial peak, while postsolidification crystal size distributions are skewed towards larger crystallite sizes.

Negative resistance for colloids driven over two barriers in a microchannel.

When considering the flow of currents through obstacles, one core expectation is that the total resistance of sequential single resistors is additive. While this rule is most commonly applied to electronic circuits, it also applies to other transport phenomena such as the flow of colloids or nanoparticles through channels containing multiple obstacles, as long as these obstacles are sufficiently far apart. Here we explore the breakdown of this additivity for fluids of repulsive colloids driven over two energetic barriers in a microchannel, using real-space microscopy experiments, particle-resolved simulations, and dynamical density functional theory.

Giant polarization anisotropic optical response from anodic aluminum oxide templates embedded with plasmonic metamaterials.

Plasmonic metamaterials enable extraordinary manipulation of key constitutive properties of light at a subwavelength scale and thus have attracted significant interest. Here, we report a simple and convenient nanofabrication method for a novel meta-device by glancing deposition of gold into anodic aluminum oxide templates on glass substrates. A methodology with the assistance of ellipsometric measurements to examine the anisotropy and optical activity properties is presented.