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Updated: Dec 30, 2025

A Modular Microfluidic Technology for Systematic Studies of Colloidal Semiconductor Nanocrystals
Published on: May 10, 2018
Colloidal trains
Mahla Mirzaee-Kakhki1, Adrian Ernst1, Daniel de Las Heras2
1Experimentalphysik X, Physikalisches Institut, Universität Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth, Germany. Thomas.Fischer@uni-bayreuth.de.
Abstract:
Single and double paramagnetic colloidal particles are placed above a magnetic square pattern and are driven with an external magnetic field processing around a high symmetry direction of the pattern. The external magnetic field and that of the pattern confine the colloids into lanes parallel to a lattice vector of the pattern. The precession of the external field causes traveling minima of the magnetic potential along the direction of the lanes. At sufficiently high frequencies of modulation, only the doublets respond to the external field and move in direction of the traveling minima along the lanes, while the single colloids cannot follow and remain static. We show how the doublets can induce a coordinated motion of the single colloids building colloidal trains made of a chain of several single colloids transported by doublets.
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