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Interaction and Dynamics of Polymers and Colloidal Particles Near Interfaces

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Dear Colleagues,

Suspensions of colloidal, polymeric, micellar or active entities close to an interface exhibit complex and fascinating static and dynamic properties, which might largely deviate from their bulk behaviour. Prominent examples of such effects are surface induced ordering, the slowing down of Brownian dynamics due to hydrodynamic interaction with solid flat surfaces, or the interface directed motion of active swimmers. As technology is zooming into ever smaller length scales, these interface effects are getting more significant and can be exploited technologically in the best case.

A thorough understanding of such interface induced effects is thus both necessary and worthwhile. On a macroscopic level, it is of practical importance to investigate suspension properties near the different types of interfaces, i. e. solid-liquid, liquid-liquid and liquid-gas. On the microscopic level, detailed knowledge needs to be acquired on the static and hydrodynamic colloid/interface and particle/particle interaction in the ultimate vicinity of an interface.

This special issue is dedicated to collect the latest experimental, theoretical and simulation results on these subjects from all research fields concerned with colloidal, polymeric or active matter.

Prof. Dr. Peter R. Lang
Dr. Yi Liu
Guest Editors

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19 pages, 2502 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Analysing Sources of Error in Total Internal Reflection Microscopy (TIRM) Experiments and Data Analysis

by J. Alejandro Rivera-Morán and Peter R. Lang

Polymers 2023, 15(21), 4208; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym15214208 - 24 Oct 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1450

Abstract

Many phenomena observed in synthetic and biological colloidal suspensions are dominated by the static interaction energies and the hydrodynamic interactions that act both between individual particles and also between colloids and macroscopic interfaces. This calls for methods that allow precise measurements of the corresponding forces. One method used for this purpose is total internal reflection microscopy (TIRM), which has been employed for around three decades to measure in particular the interactions between a single particle suspended in a liquid and a solid surface. However, given the importance of the observable variables, it is crucial to understand the possibilities and limitations of the method. In this paper, we investigate the influence of technically unavoidable noise effects and an inappropriate choice of particle size and sampling time on TIRM measurement results. Our main focus is on the measurement of diffusion coefficients and drift velocities, as the influence of error sources on dynamic properties has not been investigated so far. We find that detector shot noise and prolonged sampling times may cause erroneous results in the steep parts of the interaction potential where forces of the order of pico-Newtons or larger act on the particle, while the effect of background noise is negligible below certain thresholds. Furthermore, noise does not significantly affect dynamic data but we find that lengthy sampling times and/or probe particles with too small a radius will cause issues. Most importantly, we observe that dynamic results are very likely to differ from the standard hydrodynamic predictions for stick boundary conditions due to partial slip. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interaction and Dynamics of Polymers and Colloidal Particles Near Interfaces)

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12 pages, 2160 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Brownian Motion in Optical Tweezers, a Comparison between MD Simulations and Experimental Data in the Ballistic Regime

by Krzysztof Zembrzycki, Sylwia Pawłowska, Filippo Pierini and Tomasz Aleksander Kowalewski

Polymers 2023, 15(3), 787; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym15030787 - 3 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2515

Abstract

The four most popular water models in molecular dynamics were studied in large-scale simulations of Brownian motion of colloidal particles in optical tweezers and then compared with experimental measurements in the same time scale. We present the most direct comparison of colloidal polystyrene particle diffusion in molecular dynamics simulations and experimental data on the same time scales in the ballistic regime. The four most popular water models, all of which take into account electrostatic interactions, are tested and compared based on yielded results and resources required. Three different conditions were simulated: a freely moving particle and one in a potential force field with two different strengths based on 1 pN/nm and 10 pN/nm. In all cases, the diameter of the colloidal particle was 50 nm. The acquired data were compared with experimental measurements performed using optical tweezers with position capture rates as high as 125 MHz. The experiments were performed in pure water on polystyrene particles with a 1 μm diameter in special microchannel cells. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Interaction and Dynamics of Polymers and Colloidal Particles Near Interfaces)

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