Attractive interactions between like-charged colloidal particles at the air/water interface

In the past few years, measurements of the pair interaction potential have shown evidence of micrometer-range attractive interactions between colloidal particles trapped between glass plates. In these experiments it is believed that the glass walls play an important role in the observed attractions. Colloidal particles trapped at the air/water interface show the formation of different 2-D colloidal patterns such as foams, clusters, and chains, whose formation has been taken as evidence of micrometer-range attractive interaction. Here, we present measurements of the pair interaction potential between 0.5-microm colloidal particles at the air/water interface. Indeed, the pair potential shows an attractive secondary minimum at about 1.9sigma, where sigma is the particle's diameter. Surprisingly, the position and depth of the secondary well are similar to those found in colloidal systems trapped between glass plates. However, we do not have a clear explanation on the origin of the attractive component of the interaction potential.