Specific properties of amphiphilic particles at fluid interfaces

Specific properties of amphiphilic particles at fluid interfaces

We present a theoretical and experimental study of amphiphilic particles : these are small solid spheres treated so that one part of the solid is hydrophilic whereas the other is hydrophobic. These beads have a specific behaviour at the interface between two fluids of different polarities since they are anchored at the interface along the border line between the two parts, in a large range of v...

Ellipsoidal particles at fluid interfaces.

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( degrees ) , static interface deformations arise which lead to anisotropic capillary forces that are substantial already for micrometer-sized particles. The capillary problem is sol...

Force balance of particles trapped at fluid interfaces.

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 mechanical equilibrium and turns to be in a certain sense less restrictive than the more frequently used "energy approach," which is based on the minimization of...

Capillary interactions between colloidal particles at curved fluid interfaces

Detachment energies of spheroidal particles from fluid-fluid interfaces.

The energy required to detach a single particle from a fluid-fluid interface is an important parameter for designing certain soft materials, for example, emulsions stabilised by colloidal particles, colloidosomes designed for targeted drug delivery, and bio-sensors composed of magnetic particles adsorbed at interfaces. For a fixed particle volume, prolate and oblate spheroids attach more strong...