| Issue |
Europhys. Lett.
Volume 57, Number 3, February 2002
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 451 - 457 | |
| Section | Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1209/epl/i2002-00481-1 | |
| Published online | 01 September 2002 | |
Weak long-ranged Casimir attraction in colloidal crystals
1
Departmentt of Physics and James Franck Institute,
The University of Chicago
5640 S. Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
2
Physics Department, University of California - Santa Barbara,
CA 93106-9530, USA
3
Physics Department, University of Wisconsin
1150 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53705, USA
Received:
26
July
2001
Accepted:
7
November
2001
We investigate the influence of geometric confinement on the free energy of an idealized model for charge-stabilized colloidal suspensions. The mean-field Poisson-Boltzmann formulation for this system predicts pure repulsion among macroionic colloidal spheres. Fluctuations in the simple ions' distribution provide a mechanism for the macroions to attract each other at large separations. Although this Casimir interaction is long-ranged, it is too weak to influence colloidal crystals' properties.
PACS: 82.70.Dd – Colloids / 24.10.Pa – Thermal and statistical models / 05.70.Ce – Thermodynamic functions and equations of state
© EDP Sciences, 2002
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