Depletion Interactions Effected by Different Variants of fd Virus

Abstract

The depletion interaction between a probe sphere and a flat wall induced by fd virus is investigated by means of total internal reflection microscopy (TIRM). The viruses serve as a model system for monodisperse, rod-like colloids. We find that the experimental potentials are well described by the first-order density approximation up to an fd content of several overlap concentrations. This is in accordance with higher order density theory as confirmed by numerical calculations. Since the first-order analytical description still holds for all measurements, this exemplifies that higher order terms of the theory are unimportant for our system. Comparing the potentials induced by wild-type fd to those induced by a more rigid fd variant, it can be shown that the influence of the virus stiffness is beyond our experimental resolution and plays only a negligible role for the measured depletion potentials.