Abstract
Colloidal particles with well-controlled shapes and interactions are an ideal experimental system for exploring how matter organizes itself. Like atoms and molecules, these particles form bulk phases such as liquids and crystals. But they are more than just crude analogs of atoms; they are a form of matter in their own right, with complex and interesting collective behavior not seen at the atomic scale. Their behavior is affected by geometrical or topological constraints, such as curved surfaces or the shapes of the particles. Because the interactions between the particles are often short-ranged, we can understand the effects of these constraints using geometrical concepts such as packing. The geometrical viewpoint gives us a window into how entropy affects not only the structure of matter, but also the dynamics of how it forms.
Highlights
Colloids consist of solid or liquid particles, each about a few hundred nanometers in size, dispersed in a fluid and kept suspended by thermal fluctuations
The feature of colloids that drives much current research is their collective behavior—their ability to form complex structures and show unusual dynamical transitions. By exploring how these collective effects emerge, we gain insights into general questions of how matter organizes itself, questions that are fundamental to condensed-matter physics, materials science, and even our understanding of life itself
In 1986, Pusey and van Megen [10] showed that a colloidal dispersion of particles that closely approximated hard spheres showed a fluid-tocrystal transition. Their colloid contained on the order of 1014 particles, which, in contrast to the simulations, was unambiguously in the thermodynamic limit
Summary
Colloids consist of solid or liquid particles, each about a few hundred nanometers in size, dispersed in a fluid and kept suspended by thermal fluctuations. Whereas natural colloids are the stuff of paint, milk, and glue, synthetic colloids with well-controlled size distributions and interactions are a model system for understanding phase transitions. These colloids can form crystals and other phases of matter seen in atomic and molecular systems, but because the particles are large enough to be seen under an optical microscope, the microscopic mechanisms of phase transitions can be directly observed. Their ability to spontaneously form phases that are ordered on the scale of visible wavelengths makes colloids useful building blocks for optical materials such as photonic crystals. ADVANCES: In the past decade, our understanding of colloidal self-assembly has been transformed by experi-
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