Depletion interaction of anisotropic colloids

Abstract

Fabrication of colloidal cluster using periodic array has great potential to make photonic crystal which has a large photonic band-gap and distinctive optical property. Colloidal cluster which has anisotropic feature can be a building block of photonic crystal which has a large photonic band-gap. Various fabrication methods have been tried, however so far, it is not easy to achieve mass production of colloidal cluster. Depletion interaction is inter-particle interaction of colloids in polymer-concentrated solution which motivates self-assembly of colloidal particles. In this study, using depletion interaction between anisotropic colloid particle called Pacman particle and simple sphere particle, we suggest a method for fabrication of flexible colloidal cluster with great productivity.