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Updated: Aug 22, 2026

Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures
Published on: May 20, 2014
Melting of lamellar phases in temperature sensitive colloid-polymer suspensions
A M Alsayed1, Z Dogic, A G Yodh
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6396, USA.
Abstract:
We prepare a novel suspension composed of rodlike fd virus and thermosensitive polymer poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) whose phase diagram is temperature and concentration dependent. The system exhibits a rich variety of stable and metastable phases, and provides a unique opportunity to directly observe melting of lamellar phases and single lamellae. Typically, lamellar phases swell with increasing temperature before melting into the nematic phase. The highly swollen lamellae can be superheated as a result of topological nucleation barriers that slow the formation of the nematic phase.
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