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Updated: Nov 8, 2025
Confocal Imaging of Confined Quiescent and Flowing Colloid-polymer Mixtures
Published on: May 20, 2014
A facile evanescent-field imaging approach for monitoring colloidal gel evolution near a surface
Wei Liu1, Jiahao Wu2, Hui Zhu3
1College of Chemistry and Environmental Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China. Hecx@szu.edu.cn and Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Devices and Systems of Ministry of Education and Guangdong Province, College of Optoelectronic Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China and College of Food Engineering and Biotechnology, Hanshan Normal University, Chaozhou 521041, China and Department of Chemistry, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, N.T., Shatin, Hong Kong, China. tongai@cuhk.edu.hk.
Abstract:
A facile evanescent-field imaging approach is developed to probe the aggregation behavior of near-wall colloids/clusters during colloidal gel evolution. Total internal reflection microscope (TIRM) images are directly utilized to access the structural relaxation time via density-fluctuation theory. The behaviors of cluster-cluster aggregation and physical aging of the colloidal gel networks are resolved in both time and space under fractal scaling criteria.
