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Updated: May 30, 2026

Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures
Published on: May 20, 2014
Interactions between spheroidal colloidal particles
P Schiller1, S Krüger, M Wahab
1Department of Physical Chemistry, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Leipziger Strasse 29, 09599 Freiberg, Germany.
Abstract:
Using Derjaguin's approximation, we have evaluated the interaction energy associated with van der Waals, electrostatic, depletion, and capillary forces between colloidal spheroids. If the interaction range between spheroids is distinctly smaller than the lengths of their principal axes, then simple pair potentials that depend on particle distance and orientation can be derived. Attractive interactions between adjacent spheroids favor their parallel alignment. Parallel spheroids can be arranged into a variety of densely packed configurations. All of these configurations turn out to have the same lattice energy. We discuss the implications of this degeneracy with respect to the stability of photonic crystals consisting of spheroids.
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