Breakdown of Pairwise Additivity in Colloidal Electrostatics

ORAL

Abstract

Predictions of the structure and stability of charged colloidal suspensions typically assume pairwise additive forces. We directly measure electrostatic forces in small clusters of two to seven particles in a nonpolar solvent. We find that electrostatic interactions are not pairwise additive when the particle separations are much smaller than the screening length.

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Authors

  • Sunil Sainis

    Yale University, Mechanical Engineering Department

  • Eric Dufresne

    Yale University, Faculty of Engineering, Yale University, Yale University, Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Physics