title: Confinement effect on interparticle potential in nematic colloids.
abstract: We studied the confinement effect on the interaction force in nematic liquid crystal colloids with spherical particles inducing planar anchoring. Using magneto-optical tweezers, we measured the spatial dependence of the quadrupolar structural interparticle force over 4 orders of magnitude. For small separations, the interparticle potential follows the power law, whereas for separations larger than the sample thickness, it decreases exponentially with the decay length proportional to the sample thickness. Experimental results are reproduced by using the Landau-de Gennes free-energy minimization approach.
authors.affiliation: J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
authors.forename: Mojca
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vilfan
authors.forename: Natan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Osterman
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Copic
authors.forename: Miha
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ravnik
authors.forename: Slobodan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zumer
authors.forename: Jurij
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kotar
authors.forename: Dusan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Babic
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Poberaj