Depletion Interactions between Nanoparticles: The Effect of the Polymeric Depletant Stiffness

A Density Functional Theory is employed to study depletion interactions between nanoparticles mediated by semiflexible polymers. The four key parameters are the chain contour length and the persistence length of the polymeric depletant, its radius of gyration, and the nanoparticle radius. In the Density Functional Theory calculation of the depletion interaction between the nanoparticles mediated by semiflexible polymers, the polymer gyration radius is kept constant by varying the contour length and the persistence length simultaneously. This makes it possible to study the effect of the chain stiffness on the depletion potential of mean force between the nanoparticles for a given depletant size. It is found that the depletion attraction becomes stronger for stiffer polymer chains and larger colloids. The depletion potential of mean force is used as input to compute the phase diagram for an effective one-component colloidal system.