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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Charged colloidal particles in a charged wedge: do they go in or out?

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description

Using real-space microscopy experiments, theory and computer simulation, we study the behaviour of highly charged colloidal particles which are confined between two highly charged plates forming a wedge geometry. Under low salt conditions it is experimentally observed that colloidal particles accumulate in the cusp of a wedge to form dense fluid or crystalline ordered structures. This behaviour is found for various cell geometries, salt concentrations and gravitational strengths, and even stays stable when additional convection is present in the system. An effort is made to understand this effect qualitatively on the basis of linear screening theory. For a single macro-ion, linear screening theory predicts an attractive ‘trapping’ force